


anything not saved will be lost

by newamsterdam



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, Introspection, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Injuries, Nekoma, Sickfic, episodic, video game references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5998831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newamsterdam/pseuds/newamsterdam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>( within ten years, each cell in a human body has been replaced. </p><p>oh, kenma thinks. there’s no part of him that existed before kuroo. )</p><p>After years of friendship, Kenma begins to wonder if things between him and Kuroo will ever change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the hyrule fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter takes place before karasuno's first practice match with nekoma.

He’s halfway underneath his bed when he hears his phone chirp somewhere above him. Kenma jumps, a little, hitting the back of his head against top of his bed and disturbing a cloud of dust that falls into his hair and makes him sneeze.

Kenma crawls back out into the open air of his room, sneezing again and rubbing the dust out of his eyes. He grabs blindly for his phone, giving it a half-hearted glare when he can see enough to read the message alert flashing at him. 

_Kuroo (06:23): Did you know that every cell in the human body gets replaced every ten years??_

Of course it’s from Kuroo. Kenma doesn’t really get texts from anyone else, unless Kuroo’s relegating cat-wrangling duty to Nobuyuki that day. And even then, it’s a group text, sent out to the whole team and not Kenma directly. 

He also shouldn’t be surprised at the non sequitur. That might be mostly his fault, since he rarely initiates conversation and Kuroo’s adapted, over the years. He reads things and talks to people and gathers small bits of information and questions, anything he can use to fill the gaps with Kenma when their silence goes from comfortable to stale. 

_Kenma (06:26): that sounds like it must be fake. but ok._

_Kuroo (06:28): (▰˘︹˘▰)_  
_Kuroo (06:29): It’s not fake, it’s junk science. There’s a difference!_

_Kenma (06:30): ok_

Setting his phone aside, he pulls his t-shirt up to cover his nose and mouth before crawling back underneath the bed. He pushes boxes aside, not bothering to read the labels scrawled in his younger self’s handwriting. Eventually, towards the far corner, he spots a thin white cardboard box. Grabbing it, he pushes himself out into the air and takes a deep breath. 

His phone is flashing at him, again. 

_Kuroo (06:31): You’re more eloquent than usual, today._  
_Kuroo (06:32): Busy with something?_

_Kenma (06:37): had to find my gameboys_

_Kuroo (06:38): You know you can buy yourself a new DS charger, right? You don’t have to go back to the individual battery days, I promise._

Kenma huffs at the insult, glancing at his bedside table where his 3DS and PSP are both plugged in to their respective chargers. As if he’d ever lose something so important. 

_Kuroo (06:40): Oh—Is it Zelda Day already?_

Since Kuroo has essentially answered his own question, Kenma ignores him in favor of blowing the dust off of his fuchsia-colored Gameboy Advance and inserting new batteries. It clicks on with a familiar melody, and Kenma almost smiles. 

He taps through the game menus until he’s prompted to start a new game file. Last year’s playthrough is still saved on the cartridge, proof of his yearly quest to complete each and every game in the series. Kenma erases the file without a second thought, and starts over. 

_Kuroo (06:51): Anyway, about what I was saying earlier—_  
_Kuroo (06:52): It’s been ten years since I moved into this neighborhood._  
_Kuroo (06:53): Which means it’s been ten years since we met. Weird, huh?_

Kenma doesn’t see the messages until a few hours later, having become immediately enthralled in Link’s mission for pieces of Triforce. When he does glance back at his phone, he has to scroll back up to Kuroo’s first message to make sense of the more recent ones. 

Oh, he realizes suddenly. If they’ve known each other for ten years, then there’s no part of him left that existed before he knew Kuroo. No part left of him that Kuroo doesn’t know. 

There’s a tightness in his chest, a pressure he can’t name. He shakes his head roughly and turns back to his game, deciding not to dwell on it. He’s known Kuroo for ten years, and for each of them Kuroo’s been a constant. Nothing has ever changed. 

\--

Zelda Day is probably better referred to as Zelda Month, or Months—Kenma’s seasonal mission to replay every game in the series, a ritual he’d started in his last year of middle school and has never quite managed to complete. Last year there had been the hassle of fishing out his oldest consoles, and the added heaviness that had settled upon him from having to deal with the volleyball team’s now former third years. Even his favorite installments hadn’t been able to pull him out of that mood. 

“Remind me again why the Gameboy remake isn’t the same thing as playing on Virtual Console?” Kuroo asks the next morning, while they sit close together on the train. 

Kenma doesn’t bother looking up at him. “Closer to authentic.”

Kuroo lets out a short breath, and Kenma doesn’t need to see him to know that he’s smirking. “Of course, of course. And are we playing in story order to release order, this year?”

“Release.” It might have sounded patronizing, coming from anyone else—the way Kuroo refers to Kenma’s solitary activities as if they’re something the two of them do together. But Kenma has never seen it that way, and Kuroo spends enough time looking over his shoulder that it’s almost like he’s playing along, anyway. 

“So how much is this going to distract you from our away game next week?” 

This time Kenma does look up, sees Kuroo balancing his chin against one hand as he looks out the window at the scenery flashing by. He’s carefully poised, his expression idle. But Kenma knows his body language—Kuroo’s actually excited about something. 

“Away game?” He pays only the barest bit of attention to the schedule—enough to know roughly where he has to be, and enough to think ahead to how to best handle each match. But it’s too tiring to be more invested than that—Taketora can spend days on end hyping himself up for an individual match, and just watching him is exhausting. Kuroo focuses, especially on official matches, but he rarely gets excited unless their opponent is Fukurodani. 

Now Kuroo looks down, makes deliberate eye contact with him. “Come on, I know you were paying attention, yesterday. Coach organized a match with our ‘fated rivals.’ Karasuno.” 

“Oh.” He understands the basic purpose of a rival, abstractly at least. The best Pokémon battles in every installment are the ones against rivals, after all. But these things rarely translate so neatly to real life. He doesn’t hold up much hope that Karasuno will be anything other than one more team that quickly fades into the periphery once they’ve played and moved on. 

“So?” Kuroo prompts. “Are you going to give it your all?”

Kenma rolls his eyes, shakes his head minutely. “I don’t think it’ll be worth all that,” he says slowly. “But maybe sixty percent.”

“More than I expected.” Kuroo’s grin is sharp. He continues on, about how to best get everyone fired up so that they’ll play their best but won’t be overwhelmed. He’s good at things like that, reading people and pushing situations to provoke them into action. Kenma’s not really sure when he learned such a skill—when they’d met, seven-year-old Kuroo had already been good at pushing buttons. 

Kenma half-listens to Kuroo’s rambling, his plans to have everyone playing at one hundred percent—everyone, that is, except Kenma. Kuroo doesn’t say he’ll want to push Kenma that far—he’s content with the sixty Kenma had reluctantly given. Kenma wrinkles his nose, and tries to shake off the feeling that he’s being coddled. 

\--

He watches the clock tick through five minutes, then grabs for his Gameboy out of bag. It isn’t a rule that he and Kuroo eat lunch together—sometimes Kuroo is studying while pretending not to, or he and Yaku eat together—but most days he shows up in Kenma’s classroom as if they have some long-standing agreement. 

Kenma’s working his way through the sixth dungeon, however, pausing to take bites of his lunch every few minutes, so he doesn’t mind Kuroo’s absence. His classmates are speaking around him, but most of their conversations float over his head unless he actually concentrates on them. They never speak directly to him, and he doesn’t care to instigate conversation. It’s too much effort. 

“Yo, Kenma! C’mere!” 

The voice is so loud that it draws everyone’s eyes towards the doorway—Taketora stands there, hands still cupped around his mouth. “C’mon, c’mon, hurry up!”

His classmates glance at Taketora, then at Kenma, and then back again. Kenma grimaces, but gets up out of his seat and shuffles towards the doorway, all without taking his eyes off his game. 

Taketora at least has the sense to step into the mostly deserted hallway when Kenma fixes him with a pointed look.

“What.” 

“You’ve gotta come with me! I need to see this in person!” Tora’s always been excitable, but at the moment he’s entirely incomprehensible. The beginnings of an ache spark at the back of Kenma’s head. 

“See what,” he sighs, almost afraid of what the answer will be. 

“A real life confession, of course! How else will we learn how it’s done?” Tora’s scratching at the back of his neck, the only sign of his embarrassment. He makes an abortive motion with his hands, as though he’s about to grab Kenma by the arm and lead him down the hallway. Kenma’s immensely grateful when he instead drops his hand back down at his side. 

“Were you planning on confessing to someone?” Kenma asks dryly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Taketora’s expression shift between confusion and indignation in a matter of seconds. 

“Of course not! I just wanna see—anyway, don’t you want to know who’s confessing to the captain?” 

It takes Kenma’s brain a moment to catch up with the implications of that statement. It’s not obvious, usually, but Kuroo doesn’t cultivate people’s attention. He doesn’t shy away from it the way Kenma does, but he’s still content to lurk in the shadows, to watch people rather than having them watch him. It’s one of the things that makes him such a good strategist, that ability to notice without being noticed himself. 

As far as Kenma knows (and he would know), no one has ever confessed to Kuroo, before. 

“Let’s go,” he says, before he can really think better of it. Tora lets out a whoop of victory and then dashes down the hallway, and Kenma now has no choice but to follow. The background music of his game sounds forlorn as he tucks his Gameboy under one arm, his quest temporarily stalled. 

Taketora dashes out of the main school building, ducking behind one wall, motioning for Kenma to follow suit. He doesn’t know how this became a spy mission, all of a sudden, but he crouches beside Tora anyway. It’s only a few moments later that he notices the shadow of a familiar figure cast across the grounds.

Kuroo’s standing a few feet away from the main entrance, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. There’s a girl standing beside him—small, with perfectly straight hair that brushes her shoulders and frames her face artfully. Kenma startles when he recognizes her—Sato Kaede. She’s in his class. 

They’re too far away to hear what’s being said. Kaede looks up at Kuroo, tucks a lock of her hair behind one ear as she speaks. Her eyes are wide, her gaze confident and sure. She doesn’t fidget with her hands or shift from foot to foot—whatever she’s saying, she relays with conviction. When she’s done speaking, she lifts her chin to look at Kuroo, and Kenma clenches his teeth against the stabbing sensation that shoots through his stomach.

They look good, together. Kuroo always has the advantage of his height, but paired with Kaede, leaned towards her… the two of them look like a scene out of a shoujo manga. Kaede’s hair is fair, a counterpoint to the wild, dark locks that shadow Kuroo’s face. He’s listened to her very intently, but now he leans away. There’s the ghost of a smile fleeting across his features, but it lacks the bite of his usual smirk. He’s saying something, now, his lips moving slowly and deliberately around the words. Kenma wishes he was close enough to hear, is suddenly desperate to know what’s passing between them. 

Kaede speaks again, and Kuroo laughs—he’s rubbing at the back of his neck, eyes shut as his lips curl. He’s self-deprecating, evading something. But then Kaede repeats herself, more insistently, and Kuroo looks down at her directly. There’s a calculated look on his face for a moment, and then he sighs. He’s smiling, as he looks at her, and it’s not a smile of victory or challenge—no, it’s the private, quiet smile that Kuroo hardly lets anyone else see. Kenma knows, because it’s the way Kuroo smiles at him when they’re alone, when there’s no one else around to fool or misdirect. 

Kenma should be glad, that there’s someone else Kuroo can be open and happy with. He definitely shouldn’t be finding it hard to breathe, his gaze too focused on the pavement in front of him as the sun beats down on the back of his neck. He’s too aware of the uncomfortable position he’s crouched in, his knees protesting. It’s in moments like these that he notices too much, is hyperaware of his surroundings and just wants to block out the excess. 

“The captain’s so cool,” Tora whispers enviously, and his voice works like a magnet, drawing Kenma away from his own thoughts and back to the present moment.

He huffs. “Hardly.” He glances back to where Kuroo had been standing, but he’s turned away from Kaede now, headed back towards the building. They’re walking in opposite directions, him towards the door that leads to the third years’ wing, and her towards the second years’. 

He’s missed something vital—the last, crucial moment. But Kaede looks neither elated nor disappointed, and Kenma can’t grasp what just happened. 

“Come on,” he says to Tora after a moment. “We don’t want to be late.” 

Taketora chatters the entire way back to their classrooms, guessing at what Kuroo had done to warrant such a pretty girl’s attention, wondering why they’ve never attracted one to be the volleyball team’s manager. Kenma doesn’t bother to respond, but that’s typical enough for him. Tora hardly seems to notice. 

Back at his desk, Kenma packs up his half-eaten bento and shoves it under his chair. He purses his lips together and lets his head fall forward onto his desk, too dizzy and unsettled to fully interrogate the source of his feelings. 

When he glances up a few minutes later, Kaede is back in her seat a few rows ahead of him. She’s turned around in her chair, chatting with another girl behind her. She lifts her chin at just the right moment, and she and Kenma make eye contact—bewilderingly, her cheeks color, and she looks away quickly. 

The math teacher walks in soon after, and Kenma doesn’t even have the luxury of escaping to Hyrule to get away from the jumble his thoughts have become.

\--

They’re walking home from the train station, and everything is exceedingly normal. Kuroo is running through the strengths and weaknesses of the day’s practice, and Kenma lets him ramble, knowing that’s Kuroo’s way of thinking aloud, of sorting things out for himself. 

“So what dungeon are we on, now?” Kuroo switches gears seamlessly, leaning over to glance at Kenma’s Gameboy screen as they walk.

He shrugs with one shoulder, edges away when Kuroo casts a shadow across the screen. “Seventh,” he mumbles. 

“So much progress!” Kuroo crows. “I wonder if I should be worried.” 

Kenma shoots him a sharp look, but doesn’t question that statement. Kuroo answers, anyway.

“You know, when you started doing this…” His voice trails off, and he drags one hand across the back of his neck, tugging restlessly at the short hair there. “I just didn’t think there was anything you needed to distract yourself from, this year.”

Kenma wrinkles his brow, hunches over more until all he can see is the screen of his game. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

He doesn’t ask about Kaede. He and Kuroo don’t have secrets, so if there was anything to tell Kenma would already know. 

“Right.” Kuroo lifts his hand, and for a moment it looks like he’ll reach for Kenma, pull him closer. For a moment, Kenma almost wants him too. But then Kuroo reaches up and runs his hand through his hair, making it even messier. He sighs almost imperceptibly, then jerks his chin towards Kenma’s house. “This is where I leave you,” he says, mournfulness played up to hyperbolic levels. “Try not to stay up too late saving the princess, okay?”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Kenma says automatically, without any bite. 

Kuroo shakes his head and laughs, and when he waves Kenma off and heads down the road to his own house, things between them are normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, listen-- i know kenma loves his psp, but this kid has an egregiously large video game collection spanning multiple developers and i will not be convinced otherwise. 
> 
> this chapter is mostly a set piece, but i hope you enjoyed it and will stick with this fic! your thoughts are always valuable to me, and i'd love to hear from you.
> 
> you can always come hang with me on tumblr @[newamsterdame](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/).


	2. link's awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kenma’s not sure what to make of any of it._
> 
> _\--_
> 
> _And yet, he keeps thinking about it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kenma refers to everyone other than kuroo by their given names in his narration.
> 
> there are mentions in this chapter of bokuto/akaashi and semi-ambiguous bokuto/kuroo.

“Did I miss the kiss?” Kuroo sounds genuinely disappointed, leaning over Kenma’s shoulder to get a better look at the Gameboy screen. The train makes a sharp turn and they’re jostled closer together, Kenma stiffening before Kuroo pushes himself back to a comfortable distance away. 

“That was two games ago,” Kenma informs him, glancing down at the screen instead of at the inch or two that separates them. “I finished the next one last night.” 

“I wanted to see it.” Kuroo’s seen Kenma play _The Adventure of Link_ at least three times. The first time, when they were much younger, he’d wrinkled his nose as the curtain fell across the screen, deeming Zelda and Link’s implied relations “cheesy as hell.” 

“Why? It lasts three seconds. You can watch it on Youtube.” Kenma scowls as he clicks through his current game, brow furrowed as he hacks away at the enemies. 

“It’s romantic,” Kuroo decides. “And it means more, coming at the end of the adventure. Don’t you think?”

“They’re sixteen-bit,” Kenma deadpans. 

“And despite that, you like them more than most real people.” There’s no disputing that, so Kenma doesn’t respond immediately. “Besides, how often does it even happen, in these games?”

Kenma shrugs. He could wax poetic about the depth of Link and Zelda’s multi-lifetime relationship, but finds the notion embarrassing. They don’t need to make out in every game to prove their devotion; they’re so constant and necessary to one another that their entire universe depends on them. 

“Why’re you so focused on kissing, anyway?” Kenma asks shortly, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. He calculates how to put Kuroo on the defensive, adding, “It’s not like you have much experience.”

In his mind, Kuroo laughs this statement off, makes some comment about how he’s too focused on other things to care much for kissing. But Kenma has miscalculated, because Kuroo leans his head back against the clear plexiglass of the window and says, purposefully nonchalant, “I have _some_ experience.” 

What.

“What?” Kenma hopes the way his voice chokes can be blamed on another sharp turn, sending him falling forward before Kuroo reaches out to grab the collar of his shirt and tug him back against the seat. 

“Did I never tell you?” Kuroo says, too casually. 

“No.” Damn him, he knows it, too. Kenma may only pay attention with one ear most of the time, but he _listens_ to Kuroo. Especially when it’s important. (Kissing, he decides spontaneously, is very important.)

Kuroo isn’t deliberately cruel, so he doesn’t make Kenma ask. Instead he leans further back in his seat, closing his eyes as though calling up the memory. “It was training camp, in my first year. You remember how shitty that summer was?”

Kenma nods. He remembers that year as one of the worst of his life, when he’d been a third year in middle school. He knows Kuroo had seemed quieter, that summer, but he’d never imagined that Kuroo was as patently unhappy as Kenma had been. 

“So, it sucked because the second and third years kept throwing their weight around, and that whole week seemed like it was going to be a wash.” 

Kenma hums sympathetically— if there’s anything Kuroo can’t stand, it’s missed opportunities. 

“But then, of course, Fukurodani was hosting, so.” Kuroo tilts his head and smiles slyly. “After awhile, Kai and Yaku and I just ditched the drills the third years had us on and went to practice with Bokuto and his team. That was the first time I met him.”

“I know.” Kenma remembers waiting in the grass outside his house for Kuroo to return home, expecting that Kuroo would’ve been quiet and contemplative like he’d been since he entered high school. Instead, he run up the street with his gym bag dangling from his shoulder, the gleaming white of his teeth the first thing Kenma saw when Kuroo beamed widely at him. It was impossible to be jealous, when Kuroo invited Bokuto over to hang out with them the next week, or when Kuroo started taking the train over to Bokuto’s neighborhood every other weekend. Knowing Bokuto made Kuroo come alive again, and there was no way Kenma could ever be resentful of that. 

Kuroo chuckles softly, maybe reliving the memories, himself. “Anyway, here’s the part of the story where you learn to appreciate me as an upperclassman. Because on our last night there, we all got woken up by the third years at one in the morning, and herded into the gym. I don’t know how the coaches didn’t notice. We all had to sit in a big circle, and play a game of truth or dare that was basically the third years daring us into doing embarrassing things, while they took pictures on their cellphones.” 

“They dared you to kiss someone?” Kenma bombs through a cave wall, in his game, focusing on the pixels blasting into nothingness for a moment. 

Kuroo tuts in response, his expression clouding for just a moment. “Mm. I guess the Fukurodani third years had been bragging about Bokuto— when someone’s a star, it’s obvious from the start— and our third years took it personally, or something, that we’d been training with him. So they dared me to kiss him.” 

For some reason, Kenma hadn’t connected Bokuto to the kissing part of this story, yet. He tries to imagine Kuroo and Bokuto kissing— Bokuto’s not that much shorter, and this was first year, so Kuroo wouldn’t have been as tall, yet. Bokuto’s always too enthusiastic, so maybe he would’ve missed the target, the first time— kissed Kuroo’s chin instead of his lips. Kuroo would’ve laughed, and made a big dramatic show of of lifting Bokuto’s face so that they could get the right angle. And then he would have—

“Assholes.” Kuroo says the word shortly, darkly. Kenma has worse memories of last year’s third years, but he supposes they must have learned from someone. 

“But, you know, Bokuto completely disarmed them.” Kuroo smiles almost savagely, remembering. “He just got up and acted like it was no big deal, except that he kept saying how lucky we both were, and that it was only natural that two best guys at camp would hook up. That idiot probably didn’t even realize what he was saying. The third years had no idea what to do with him, since he wasn’t embarrassed. And since he wasn’t, I didn’t have to be, either.” 

It’s been a long time since Kenma’s seen Kuroo embarrassed. He feels conscious of himself, as much as anyone else, but has always exuded defiant, quiet confidence. Selfishly, Kenma is glad that he’s never had to see Kuroo as an underclassman. He doesn’t ever want to see someone deliberately trying to break down Kuroo’s calm demeanor. 

“So you kissed him?”

“It was more of a—” Kuroo breaks off, cups each of his hands and then smacks them together with a deafening clap. The other passengers in their compartment look up at the noise, but when Kuroo just stares back at them they quickly look away. 

Kenma nods, makes some noncommittal noise as he turns back to his game, trying to avoid picturing the event again. 

“So, that was my first kiss.” Kuroo finishes with finality, as though he’s just told some epic tale. 

Kenma nods again, clicking furiously through a particularly complicated battle. Sensing this, Kuroo lets their conversation lapse back to silence, his eyes half-shut. 

“Is the game giving you trouble?” he says, a few minutes later. “You keep frowning the screen.” 

He shakes his head minutely. “I’ve played it three times,” he says blandly, because Kuroo shouldn’t ask such stupid questions. “I just don’t like it.”

That’s not strictly true— it’s one of the highest-rated games of all time, and certainly not boring. He just finds aspects of the story lacking.

“Why not?” Kuroo’s turned in his seat, now, all his attention focused on Kenma.

His cheeks color before he answers. “Zelda’s not in it.”

“Oho,” Kuroo says slyly. “Missing your two-dimensional girlfriend?” 

“Don’t be weird.” And in any case, he identifies with Zelda more than he’s attracted to her. This is something he’d never admit, but you just can’t play through every game in the Zelda line without wondering which piece of the Triforce you’d bear. He’d ruled out power almost immediately, and courage very quickly thereafter. He’s physically weak and naturally timid. But he can think, and as a setter he specializes in acting through strategy, by utilizing the strength and conviction of others. That’s not so unlike the way Zelda uses her wisdom. 

“Don’t worry, Kenma. You’ll be done with that game probably by tonight, since you won’t listen to me when I tell you to get some sleep. And then you and Zelda will be reunited.”

Kenma huffs, shifting in his seat. “She and Link will be reunited,” he corrects. 

“Of course.” Kuroo’s tone has adopted that annoying, too-knowing edge. 

A chime sounds over the intercom, a pleasant woman’s voice announcing that their stop is coming up. They grab their schoolbags, getting to their feet so that they can jump off the train as soon as the doors open. Before the train stops, however, Kuroo ducks down so that he say something to Kenma in a low voice.

“You know Bokuto’s totally gone for Akaashi, right?” 

Kenma does know, because anyone who’s spent any time around the two of them does. Bokuto is in constant need of praise, but somehow it means more coming from Akaashi than anyone else. When Bokuto happens to be doing drills on one side of a gym and Akaashi on the other, his wild gold eyes follow the setter’s movements like he’s trying to memorize everything about him. It would be embarrassing, if Bokuto wasn’t so dripping with sincerity. 

Kuroo doesn’t wait for Kenma to respond, and when the train stops he quickly tugs Kenma through the station so that they can walk the rest of the way to school. Kenma keeps his head down all the while, pretending to be more focused on his game than he actually is.

Really, he’s trying to figure out why Kuroo felt the need to point out such an obvious fact. 

\--

Kenma is going to kill Kuroo.

It’s the second week since they’ve gotten a new member—Lev, the impossibly lanky first year. Lev seems to be under the impression that bravado and enthusiasm can make up for his lack of skill and finesse, no matter what he’s told to the contrary. It’s exhausting even being around him. 

“Just see if you can get him to hit a few spikes.” Kuroo at least has the decency to look halfway apologetic. “I’ll have Yaku work with him on receives, after that.”

“No, you won’t,” Morisuke says from across the gym, not even looking back at them as he dives for a ball Nobuyuki’s just spiked towards him.

“Who’s the captain, again?” Kuroo asks blandly, raising his voice so that it carries over the squeak of sneakers against the gym floor and the bounce of volleyballs against the walls. 

Everyone except Kenma straightens up when Kuroo adopts that tone. He’s rarely callous, as a captain, and has the uncanny ability of keeping calm and steady even when under pressure or particularly annoyed. Kenma knows that Lev is testing the bounds of Kuroo’s patience, and that fact almost has him forgiving Kuroo. Almost. 

Kuroo doesn’t wait for Kenma to agree. He cups his hands over his mouth and shouts across the gym. “Lev! Get over here— Kenma’s going to toss to you.” 

Lev dashes across the court, long limbs flailing as he smiles wide. “I’m here! I’ll hit them! Please toss to me!”

Kuroo inclines his head, his smile slightly mocking. “Have fun, you two.”

Kenma sighs heavily. If there’s anything he’s learned from high school volleyball, it’s that it’s nearly impossible for him to toss to someone he doesn’t like, doesn’t connect with. He doesn’t necessarily dislike Lev, but he finds his excess of energy draining, and Lev is nearly impossible to really understand. 

“Go stand over there— no, _there_.” Lev scrambles to obey Kenma’s instructions, and Kenma has no choice but to start sending him easy, middle-of-the-road tosses. 

The results aren’t particularly encouraging, but eventually they fall into— well. Not quite a rhythm, but a comfortable pattern of toss, miss, toss again. Lev has to be able to hit at least one toss eventually, statistically speaking.

Lev is focused, but chatty. “Everyone on the team is really skilled, don’t you think?”

Kenma has no strong opinion on the matter. “We aren’t geniuses. If we don’t master the basics, we’ll never get anywhere.” 

“You’re not a genius?” Lev gapes at that, like this is utterly new information.

His incredulity is irritating. Kenma drops the volleyball he’d been holding and spreads his hands. He knows what he looks like— he stands hunched, his gym clothes baggy around his thin frame. He’s not unhealthy, but he’s probably the least fit person on the team, in terms of athleticism. 

“Do I look like a star athlete to you?” Kenma doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so poisonous, but he’s tired and annoyed, and still a little unsettled from his conversation with Kuroo on the train that morning. 

“No,” Lev says agreeably, laughing loudly. “That’s why I was so surprised with Kuroo-san said you were the brain of the team! I was expecting someone who looked more like the volleyball players at the Olympics.” 

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Kenma mutters under his breath.

“But then I realized!” Lev continues, eyes gleaming. “If you aren’t a star athlete, but you still can be the most important member of the team, you must be even more special! A true genius!”

“I’m not the most important,” Kenma mumbles, self-conscious. He knows Kuroo’s grand ambition is to build Nekoma up around his role as setter, and he’s gone along with that plan for Kuroo’s sake. But when Kenma looks out at a rival team across the court and tries to decide how best to beat him, his own abilities are the last thing he takes into account. It’s much more important to account for Morisuke’s receives, or Kuroo’s blocks, or Sou’s and Taketora’s spikes. Each piece of the team has to fit together to make a strategy truly work, and Kenma’s tosses are nothing more than the spark that lights the match. 

“Hey! Less talking, more tossing!” Kuroo’s voice rings out across the gym, cracking sharp like a whip. 

Kenma rolls his eyes as he leans down to retrieve the dropped volleyball, but when he stands up again he sees Lev looking after Kuroo with nothing short of worshipful admiration in his eyes. 

“Kuroo-san is so cool,” Lev says, his tone whispery even though his volume hasn’t changed. Kenma isn’t really sure what he’s hoping to accomplish.

“No, he’s not.” Kenma’s still speaking to the ground, his voice barely audible. It’s hard to think of someone as cool when you saw them spend the entirety of the last weekend reading light novels and challenging Bokuto to see who could send the longest chain of thumbs up emojis via text. 

“He’s kind of mean,” Lev continues, as though he hasn’t heard Kenma. (He probably hasn’t.) “He looks really scary, and when I first joined the team he made me run laps for four practices straight.”

Kenma could mention that last year’s third years hadn’t let him even touch a volleyball for the first month. Kuroo’s methods are at least meant to improve endurance; their old upperclassmen had just been exercising their power. 

“But I guess that’s why so many people like him,” Lev finishes off, like he’s come to some great epiphany. 

“What?” 

Lev nods sagely, like he’s dispensing great wisdom. “People are attracted to meanness. It’s like—what’s it called?—‘playing hard to get!’ But with the whole world.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He tosses the ball, and Lev thankfully jumps for it, so they can at least pretend that they’re trying to practice. 

Lev’s sneakers squeak against the floor as he lands, and he nods vigorously. “Of course it does! Why else would so many people like Kuroo-san?”

“Who likes him?” Of course, people like Kuroo— but not in a romantic sense, which Lev’s tone seems to be implying. But hadn’t Sato Kaede confessed to him, just a few days ago? And if she’d gotten up the courage to do that, maybe there’s a whole list of others who just haven’t confessed.

“A bunch of the first years,” Lev says matter-of-factly. “The first week of school, some of the girls made a list of all the club captains, boys and girls, and decided who was best. Kuroo-san didn’t win, but he was close to the top! Even some of the boys voted for him. They said he looks cool, and a little scary!”

Kenma’s class hadn’t done that, last year. He’s pretty sure he would have noticed. 

But Kuroo isn’t mean. He’s entirely the opposite. He knows that Lev has been tiring of receiving and blocking training, and so he’s making Kenma toss to Lev so that Lev will get a taste of what he could be if he actually does become a viable member of the team. Kuroo reads everyone that way. He knows exactly how hard to push and prod them, and at exactly which moment to back off and be kinder. Kuroo is _always_ kind, at the basis of his actions. Even when he’s a little harsh.

There’s an itching sensation at the base of Kenma’s skull, an idea he can’t ignore once he’s thought of it. “Do _you_ like Kuro?” 

Lev throws back his head and laughs. “Of course not!” he says, as though it’s obvious. Even though he thinks lots of people do like Kuroo, and that that’s obvious, too. 

Kenma’s lips pull downwards. “Why not?”

For the first time since Kenma’s known him, Lev looks bashful. There’s a hint of pink across his high cheekbones as he turns his head to the side. “I think I like people I don’t have to compete with, on height.”

“…okay.” Kenma finds that statement particularly useless— wouldn’t Lev win any competition of height, anyway? Kuroo’s tall, but he’s nowhere near as tall as Lev is. 

“Lev!” Morisuke’s voice is loud across the gym, more agitated than Kenma’s used to hearing it. “If you’re not actually going to practice spikes, get over here— receiving training.”

Lev groans, but Kenma notices that he doesn’t drag his feet much as he makes his way over to Morisuke. Kuroo turns around and catches Kenma’s eye, offering him a wink and a smirk.

Kenma’s not sure what to make of any of it.

\--

And yet, he keeps thinking about it. 

Kuroo’s objectively attractive, Kenma knows. He notices people, aesthetically, and after a few years of particularly awkward gangliness Kuroo had filled out to pleasing proportions. He has broad shoulders and lean muscles, naturally tanned skin that gleams under the summer sun. Kenma’s the first person to mock him for his messy hair, but he does have the SquareEnix look down— jagged locks shadowing his face, making him look just slightly dangerous. His golden eyes gleam when he’s planning something, but they _shine_ when he smiles.

Objectively, it makes sense that people would like Kuroo. Even if they thought he was mean, which is ridiculous.

Kenma huffs a frustrated sigh, which turns into something like a hiccup when Kuroo joins him outside the locker room for their walk to the train station. Kuroo quirks a brow, but Kenma just shrugs it off, and they fall instep.

The girls’ soccer team is just finishing practice, members crowded around the outdoor benches as they drink from their water bottles and reach for towels. One of them, her fair hair tied up in a high tail, reaches high over her teammates to wave.

“Kuroo-senpai! Kozume-kun!” 

Kenma blinks at the sound of his name, attention refocused on the girl. She looks entirely different in her soccer shorts and practice jersey, but it’s Kaede. She’s saying hello as if they’re all old friends, when Kenma’s pretty sure he’s never actually spoken to her before.

“Sato,” Kuroo says agreeably, raising one hand. “Good luck at the tournament.”

She calls out her thanks, and Kuroo just nods as he and Kenma keep walking. He’s not going to ask, he tells himself. He definitely, definitely isn’t going to ask.

“She’s in your class, right? Sato,” Kuroo says after a few moments. 

Kenma’s face pinches, because Kuroo is supposed to _know_ what topics to bring up and which ones to avoid at all costs. 

“Yes.” He leaves it at that, hands fidgeting for a few minutes before he reaches into his bag for his Gameboy. At least now, he doesn’t have to look at Kuroo when he asks stupid questions. 

“She’s nice,” Kuroo tries again. 

“Okay.” He’s halfway through this particular game, which means that soon he can move onto one of his favorite in the series. That’s something to look forward to, at least. 

“Have you ever talked to her?” 

Kenma lets out a noise halfway between a hiss and a growl. Why does Kuroo keep harping on this? 

“I’ll take that as a no.” Kuroo hooks his thumbs into the pockets of his slacks, whistling something purposefully off-key. For a few moments, Kenma thinks he’s going to let the topic drop entirely. But then: “You know everyone on the team really likes you, right?”

It’s not the change of topic Kenma had been expecting. And he knows, at least in some distant way. He likes the team, too—Nobuyuki and Morisuke had been great last year, too, and he’s come to be comfortable around Taketora and Shouhei. He’s even fond of the first years, though reserving judgment on Lev. 

“I’m just saying,” Kuroo says, turning his face up towards the sun. “It’s not like last year. Or the year before that.” 

These moments have been happening too frequently lately—the sensation that there’s an understanding hovering just beyond him, like a shadow he keeps seeing out of the corner of his eye. Kuroo is trying to tell him something, to get him to understand—but Kenma doesn’t want to take the step forward to bridge the gap between them. If he’s honest, it’s because he’s scared of what will happen if he does. He’s gotten used to the way his life is, observing people without forcing himself to interact with them, using Kuroo and his electronics as a shield. 

Is Kuroo saying he’s gotten tired of that? 

The thought is too terrifying to contemplate. Kenma keeps his expression carefully schooled, eyes on his game so that Kuroo won’t notice the way they’ve gone wide and somewhat unfocused. 

“I know,” he says quietly. “It’s not like last year.”

Kuroo hums in response, reaches down to ruffle Kenma’s hair. It’s a familiar weight, and Kenma leans away from Kuroo’s hand out of habit more than active irritation. By the time they’ve taken the train back to their neighborhood and gotten back to Kenma’s house, he can almost dismiss the tumultuous feeling in his stomach as a passing sensation.

“I’ll see you bright and early, to catch the bus?” Kuroo says, voice lilting in question even though it’s more of a statement. 

“Bus?” 

“Golden Week training, remember?” Kuroo’s grin is sly and knowing. “We’re headed to Miyagi.”

Kenma must make an absolutely disgusted face, because Kuroo’s laughing again, teeth gleaming. 

He really is going to kill Kuroo.

\--

“Kenma,” Kuroo says for perhaps the tenth time, “Don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.” And yet, he’s physically turned away from Kuroo on the bus, facing the window so he doesn’t have to look at Kuroo’s expression. It’s mid-afternoon, but they had shown up to school at an ungodly hour to catch the train north. Now, on a bus to the high school they’ll be using for practice, most of their teammates are sprawled over the seats as they nap. They really are like a bunch of cats, sometimes. 

“Kenma,” Kuroo says again, poking his side. “Ken _ma_.”

“Stop that,” Kenma hisses, drawing his knees up to his chest. 

It’s a stupid argument, Kenma knows. He’d been set to start on _The Ocarina of Time_ , today, a game he firmly believes should be played on the original Nintendo 64 for optimal playthrough value. Of course, if they’re going to be in Miyagi for the next few days, he can’t be attached to a TV and home console to play through the game. Which leaves him with the 3DS remake. It’s not really even that much of a hardship, but it’s the principle of the thing. Coach Nekomata’s delusions of glorious rivalry have disrupted his routine, and Kenma doesn’t thank him or Kuroo for it. 

Kuroo seems to give up, for a little while. He shifts in his seat and mutters something to Morisuke, sitting behind them. Morisuke mumbles something back, half-asleep. Kenma stares out the window at the green Miyagi countryside. It looks like something out of a scenic painting, too quaint to be real. 

Kenma is too aware of his proximity to Kuroo. When Kuroo stretches, his long legs reach beneath the seat in front of them. He’s all sharp angles and bold lines, from the slope of his nose to the glint of his teeth when he smirks. For as long as Kenma’s known Kuroo, he’s just been a constant— a fixed point, someone he didn’t have to focus on to understand. Suddenly, it feels like there’s an entirely new person sitting beside him.

(Or maybe Kuroo isn’t the one who’s changing, a small voice says in the back of his mind. Maybe it’s Kenma that’s changing, and he’s what’s upsetting the equilibrium they’ve had for the past ten years.)

Kuroo shifts beside him, again, and before Kenma can react Kuroo is leaning over into Kenma’s space, forcing Kenma to look up and into Kuroo’s piercing eyes. Kenma can’t remember not wanting to be close to Kuroo, so the urge to get up and run hits him like freight train. He swallows convulsively to force the impulse down. 

“What,” Kenma mumbles, tugging the sleeves of his team jacket over his palms and fingers. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s really wrong?” Kuroo says, voice a practiced whisper. “You’ve been antsy for over a week, now. Talk to me.”

His voice is smooth, its inflections gently shifting like waves at low tide. Kenma gulps, and suddenly his throat feels scratchy and raw. There’s a part of him that desperately wants to talk to Kuroo, because that’s what he’s always done in the past. That’s what’s always made him feel better. But if Kuroo is pushing him towards other people in the hope that Kenma won’t burden Kuroo as much, won’t he be disappointed if Kenma just unloads his uncertainties on Kuroo once again? 

Kenma can’t tell Kuroo that he’s the source of Kenma’s anxieties. That would hurt Kuroo too badly. 

“I’m fine,” he says finally, but even as he forces the word out of his mouth he realizes he’s paused too long. Kuroo is meticulously perceptive, and knows all of Kenma’s tells. 

Kuroo bites down on his lower lip, his face pulling into a frown. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says in the same hushed, calm tone. “But don’t lie to me, either. Okay?”

“I’m not lying,” Kenma says flatly. 

“You’re not telling me something,” Kuroo retorts. 

Sometimes, Kenma forgets that Kuroo doesn’t actually have endless reserves of patience. Kenma feels dizzy, circling around their conversation in his mind, trying to find a way to deflect attention away from himself.

“You do the same thing,” he accuses. 

“What are you talking about?” Kuroo looks genuinely confused.

They’ve been speaking in whispers the entire time, their voices pitching lower rather than growling louder with strain. Around them, the others are still asleep, or listening to headphones, and Coach Manabu, driving the bus, is too far away to really hear them. That doesn’t make the conversation feel less charged.

Kenma hugs his knees, stares at the back of the seat in front of them. “You don’t tell me everything. That girl, Kaede. She likes you. You didn’t tell me that.” He says each word deliberately, like he’s laying a series of cards on a table, one by one. 

Kuroo blinks at him, looking baffled. “Sato?” He shakes his head. “Kenma, she doesn’t _like me_ —” Kuroo cuts himself off, lets out a deep breath and sinks back into his seat. He’s quiet for a moment, like he’s running through something in his head. When he speaks again, his voice is deliberately idle, his expression carefully blank.

“Is that what’s bothering you? That you thought someone liked me?”

It’s a question that cuts too close to the truth. Kenma purses his lips, because not saying anything is safer than trusting himself to make the right words at this moment. He’s never been much good at talking, and even when he plays through digital novels he has to try out all the options before he decides that he’s made the best choice. At least, in those games, there’s always a do-over.

“Kenma?” Kuroo asks softly. 

They’ve come to a stop. Coach Nekomata is calling out to the them from the front of the bus, telling them to wake up and help unload the gear. Around them, their teammates are groaning and rubbing their eyes, hauling themselves to their feet. 

“Let’s go,” Kenma says, and Kuroo makes a motion like he’s going to grab for Kenma’s hand, to hold him back, but Kenma’s too quick. He slips past Kuroo and in front of Sou, following Morisuke and Nobuyuki off the bus. 

His mind is racing as he grabs his bag, slinging his backpack over his shoulders just for the excuse to keep his hands moving. It’s not that he’s bothered that someone would like Kuroo—of course he people like Kuroo, _Kenma_ likes Kuroo—

 _Oh_.

He’s dizzy, again. He tries to focus on the small crowd of people around him, thinks Morisuke might be saying something, Coach Nekomata is telling them the name of the high school they’re playing today, and Kuroo is—

Kuroo is making his way through the crowd of people, his face all concern and gentle understanding and—

Kenma doesn’t think before he pivots on his heel and breaks into a run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [this](http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda/images/1/13/Ending_%28The_Adventure_of_Link%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20110816035829) is the kiss at the end of the adventure of link that kuroo's referring to in the first scene. 
> 
> link's awakening is widely regarded as one of the best video games of all time, but zelda isn't in it, which is an unforgivable failing. the entire plot is also a fake-out dream sequence, so. 
> 
> the [triforce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triforce) is a powerful relic in zelda lore. there are three aspects of it-- power, courage, and wisdom. link is typically associated with courage, zelda with wisdom, and ganon with power. 
> 
> this chapter sort of blew up my outline because it was supposed to be the karasuno chapter, but as you've read i didn't quite get there, yet. we'll see how the next one goes.
> 
> thanks for reading/commenting on the last chapter! i'd love to hear what you thought of this one, as well. 
> 
> [here](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/post/139550308040/anything-not-saved-will-be-lost-part-ii) on tumblr.


	3. ocarina of time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenma’s always been the hesitant one, the one who shies away from conflict. Kuroo is supposed to be the brave one.

He can’t keep running forever. Kenma’s never had much stamina, even after years of volleyball training. Kuroo has them run laps every practice, but Kenma usually shuffles along in the back while Tora tries to outpace Nobuyuki, who somehow manages to beat them all without breaking a sweat or the smile on his face. Sometimes, Kuroo will look back at Kenma, who isn’t even trying, and roll his eyes, an indulgent smile on his face.

He doesn’t want to be thinking about Kuroo, right now. Even when he can’t run anymore, Kenma forces himself to keep walking, though his stomach aches like he’s about to throw up. He doesn’t recognize the streets in Miyagi, just takes a random turn at each intersection until he finds himself in front of a small, grassy lot. 

His legs won’t carry him any further. Kenma sits down, blood rushing to his ears. The world around him is fuzzy and indistinct, just the green of the grass and the black of the asphalt, and nothing in between. Kenma presses his forehead to his knees, taking deep breaths. 

It’s not as if he’s discovered anything new. Rather, it’s like he’s now being forced to focus on something that has, until now, existed only in the periphery of his perception. Now that it’s right before him, it’s clear why he’s tried so hard not to notice it. Like looking at the sun, the knowledge is too bright, too overwhelming. It burns through him and leaves him feeling overwhelmed and dizzy.

He _likes_ Kuroo.

He’s probably in love with Kuroo.

How long has he been in love with Kuroo?

It isn’t worth thinking about. Kuroo is a constant presence in his life, a fixed point. He might as well try to remember when he first started responding to his own name. It’s a fact, baked into his DNA as much as the color of his eyes. 

He needs to stop thinking about this. Kenma grapples with his pockets for a moment, finding his 3DS and turning it on, letting the soft chime of the selection menus lull him with their familiarity. 

He tries to get lost in Link’s adventures, like he has a million times before. But as soon as he guides Link to approach Hyrule Castle, he’s struck by a memory.

It was ten years ago, when Kuroo and his mother moved onto Kenma’s street, to the last house on the corner, slightly smaller than the one Kenma has lived in his entire life. There were other children on the street, most a few years older or younger than Kenma, but Kuroo sought him out right away, anyway. He pestered Kenma into playing volleyball and asked too many questions when Kenma was trying to play through the latest Pokémon game. He insisted on walking with Kenma to the corner store on his birthday, buying them both ice cream. He talked too much about the volleyball strategies he’d seen on TV, or the books he was reading, or the people in his class at school. 

Eventually, he had become as familiar as the scent of apple pie or the victory theme in Final Fantasy. Kenma has long since stopped wondering why Kuroo stuck around; he just knows that Kuroo will always be there.

He needs to stop thinking about this. It isn’t helping him calm down, just making him increasingly frantic. He doesn’t have an answer for why Kuroo has stuck so close by his side for all of these years. As far as Kenma is concerned, there is no good reason for Kuroo to still be around.

Stop thinking about it, he tells himself desperately. He guides Link through the castle, looking for the princess to activate the next cut scene. But he isn’t fast enough, and his thoughts keep spiraling. 

“Hey!” A bright voice calls out to him, pulling Kenma’s focus away from his own thoughts. “What’re you doing?”

\--

His name is Hinata Shouyou. He’s loud and he talks too fast and too much, but Kenma doesn’t mind. Instead, he’s grateful—Shouyou leads the conversation away from the things Kenma doesn’t want to focus on, and all Kenma has to do is provide his minimal answers to Shouyou’s questions. Yes, those are volleyball shoes. Yes, he plays for his school’s team. No, he doesn’t particularly like or dislike it. Yes, he plays setter. 

“You’re nothing like our setter,” Shouyou tells him bluntly. “He’s more like… _grrr_!” He bares his teeth and curls his fingers like claws. It’s hardly a flattering depiction, but Kenma notices that Shouyou’s eager to talk about his team’s setter. He probably would continue in that vein, except that—

“Oi, Kenma!”

It’s amazing, how relief floods him, rather than anxiety. He looks up to see Kuroo, standing in the road with a careful expression. Kenma’s can see the tension in the corners of his eyes, the worry sitting heavily on his shoulders. 

Now isn’t the time to run away. Whatever else happens between them, Kuroo doesn’t deserve that. So Kenma gathers up his things and waves his goodbye to Shouyou, and obediently follows Kuroo down the street.

“You shouldn’t just wander off like that,” Kuroo says once they’re out of earshot, his voice carefully casual. 

“Sorry.” Kenma shrugs, fingers laced together and fidgeting. He may be ready to be around Kuroo, but he isn’t ready to talk about why he ran away. He hasn’t had time to process it, himself.

Kuroo pauses and stares at Kenma for a moment, brows knit together.

“What?”

“You’re smiling.”

It isn’t until Kuroo says it that Kenma realizes he’s been smiling for a while—since a few minutes into his conversation with Shouyou. He hasn’t felt so immediately comfortable with someone in ages, and he wonders if it’s because Shouyou is inherently easy to get along with, or because Kenma was so desperate to have a distraction. Maybe it’s some combination of both. 

“You said they were our rivals.” 

“Huh?” Kuroo turns to him with one eyebrow arched. 

“Karasuno.” Kenma tugs at his sleeves, searching for a way to properly express his feelings. “That guy—Shouyou—was from Karasuno. But I think you got it wrong.”

“How’s that?” Kuroo adopts the indulgent tone he takes on whenever he doesn’t quite understand what Kenma’s saying, but is willing to wait until Kenma explains it to him.

“Rivals are like Green, in Pokémon. Ambitious and a little rude, maybe. Spiky hair.”

“Okay…”

“Shouyou wasn’t like that.” Kenma shrugs. “He was the protagonist, I think. Like Red. Cheerful and excited. I think he loves volleyball more than anything.”

“So what you’re saying is…” Kuroo starts, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“ _We’re_ the rivals.” 

Kuroo throws back his head and laughs, loud guffaws that come from deep in his chest. When he catches his breath, he leans one hand against Kenma’s shoulder. “You know rivalries go two ways, right? If we’re their rivals, then they’re ours.”

Kenma shrugs. “Someone still has to be Red, and someone Green.”

“Yeah, but red is our color.”

Kenma blinks. Those technicalities don’t matter, to him. “You look more like an antagonist than Shouyou.”

“Ouch.” Kuroo wrinkles his nose. “First rival, now antagonist. Maybe I should lean into it. Be a truly menacing rival captain, tomorrow.”

“Do whatever you want.” But Kenma can’t help the way his lips pull up at the corners, the smile returning to his face. 

\--

By the time they make it back to their host school, it’s time to dive straight into practice matches. They play one game after another, and by the end of the day Kenma feels sore from his fingertips to his calves. He lays out his bedding between Tora and Shouhei’s, shuffling into the corner to log another hour or so in _Ocarina of Time_ while the rest of the team chatters around him.

But the game can’t seem to capture his full attention. It’s like every moment of the day has taken up residence in his skull, smashing against each other like atoms. He doesn’t know what to do.

He tries to convince himself to ignore his feelings for Kuroo, for the time being. He’s not in a position to do anything about them right now, anyway, and Kuroo’s too excited about playing Karasuno tomorrow. Kenma doesn’t want to ruin that for him. Besides, he doesn’t have that sort of bold courage. He doesn’t know if he ever _could_ voice what he’s feeling. 

But as soon as he dismisses his own feelings, a more pressing question rises in his mind: what are Kuroo’s feelings for him?

He had heard what Kuroo had said earlier, when one of their opponents had looked at him with skepticism.

_Kenma is our backbone, brain and heart._

But why is Kuroo so determined to make Kenma the center of their team? He isn’t more talented as a setter than Morisuke is as a libero, or Taketora is as a spiker. There’s no need for Kenma to be that important.

Kuroo wants to win, Kenma tells himself. He’s smart, and strategic. If he thinks Kenma can lead their team to victory, then that’s why he pushes Kenma forward. 

But why does Kuroo want to win? When he talks about Karasuno, he speaks of a long-dead rivalry reborn, of making Coach Nekomata’s long-held dream come true. And that’s just like Kuroo, to put his all into something for someone else’s sake. 

But the question remains—what does Kuroo want, for himself? When was the last time he did something for his own benefit?

He’s like Link—courageous but understated, putting his all into some greater good. It’s not for glory or recognition—Link doesn’t desire those things, shies away from them. At the end of most games, what he wants is to return to his quiet existence with the knowledge that the kingdom will carry and prosper, Zelda at its head. 

“Why would anyone be that stupid?” Kenma mutters to himself. Why did they never ask for anything, for themselves?

“Go to sleep,” Kuroo’s voice cuts through the darkness, punctuated by the pillow that he throws over Kenma’s head, snuffing out the light of his handheld. Around them, the rest of the team snickers. “All of you,” Kuroo growls. “I mean it.”

Kenma turns off his 3DS and turns over in his bedding, but it’s a long time before he actually manages to sleep.

\--

“We’re like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keeping the oxygen moving, and our brain working.”

It’s not the first time Kenma’s heard Kuroo’s rallying speech, but every time in makes him groan inwardly. Today, his thoughts are still swirling with yesterday’s revelations, and he can’t seem to separate the two. 

He doesn’t want to be the center of the team unless he knows why Kuroo cares, so much. 

“Do you have to say that every time?” He grumbles at Kuroo.

“What’s wrong with it?” Tora cuts in. “It helps set the mood!” 

Kuroo just smirks. “There you have it.” 

He doesn’t know why he puts up with any of them.

He wouldn’t say he enjoys the match against Karasuno. As a rule, Kenma doesn’t enjoy volleyball matches. But playing against Shouyou’s team—their genius setter and impressive ace, solid captain and that sneaky middle blocker—isn’t _un_ enjoyable. Kenma can admit that he finds Shouyou’s combinations with his setter impressive, even though he’d rather be caught dead than trying to receive one of their godly quicks. 

As for Kuroo, he’s in his element. He’s taken Kenma’s words to heart, flashing his sneakiest smile as he faces down Karasuno’s captain with thinly-veiled challenge. Yuuki balks at Kuroo’s expression, and Kenma’s sure Lev would, too, if he were present. But Kenma knows better. Kuroo isn’t actually feeling anything close to malice—no, he’s enjoying himself. 

The thought sends something warm fluttering in Kenma’s stomach, and so he doesn’t drag his feet too much when Shouyou insists on one more set, and then another, and then another. By the time they’re finally through, all of Kenma’s muscles are screaming in protest. But his team is smiling, and Kuroo is happy, and Kenma doesn’t have it in him to be the only gray cloud in a clear sky. (Though, to be fair, Karasuno’s setter seems the most like a storm cloud, to the point where Kenma imagines thunderbolts emanating off of him. Kenma very quickly decides he’d like nothing to do with Kageyama Tobio.)

But Shouyou catches him on his way out, holding out his cell phone. “Hey, Kenma! Give me your number!”

Kenma looks at him—bright and reassuring, with the rays of the setting sun catching in his warm-colored hair—and nods, faintly. 

It’s the first time he’s made a friend on his own, who didn’t come pre-packaged with the volleyball team. He wiggles his toes inside his sneakers, quietly pleased with himself.

\--

Kuroo claims the seat next to him on the bus, stretching his arms over his head and grinning, quietly pleased with himself. The curve of his smile thins his lips, the slope of his nose shadowing one side of his face. For some reason, Kenma feels the heat rising in his cheeks.

As the bus rolls through the quiet streets of Miyagi, Kenma tries to image talking to Kuroo about his feelings. Kuroo has always been an attentive listener, especially when it comes to Kenma. He would hold his response until Kenma was finished, even if Kenma stuttered and stalled through his words. He would take in every word, think them over carefully. And then—

The image of Kuroo and Kaede standing together in the schoolyard comes back to Kenma in full force: Kuroo’s self-deprecating smile and the gentle movement of his lips, the kindness in his eyes as he’d told her… what _had_ he told her? 

What would he tell Kenma, if Kenma confessed to him? For the first time, Kenma can’t predict what Kuroo will do. It’s as though someone has blinded one of his eyes—not being able to read Kuroo is as debilitating to Kenma as losing one of his senses. Panic rises in his throat, again. Isn’t loving someone supposed to make you feel good, complete? So why does he feel so off-balance, more uncertain of himself than ever before? 

“Hey,” Kuroo mutters from beside him, half-awake but still attentive to Kenma’s needs. “What’re you thinking about?”

If only there was an easy, simple answer to that question.

Kenma tilts his head away from Kuroo, unable to meet his eyes. If he looks at Kuroo, the truth will come spilling out, and that can’t happen. Kenma never makes a move unless he can be reasonably sure of the result. And since he doesn’t know what Kuroo will say in response, he absolutely can’t reveal his feelings. 

“Hey,” Kuroo mutters again, poking Kenma in the arm. 

“Stop that,” Kenma snaps, shifting away.

“No,” Kuroo says, poking Kenma again. “C’mon, talk to me.”

“Cut it out,” Kenma says, without any real bite. 

But Kuroo, for all his virtues, has never been good at knowing when to stop. So he shifts, poking at Kenma’s cheek and ruffling his hair. “Only if you admit that you had fun, today.”

“Why would I do that?” Kenma asks blandly, still trying to squirm away from Kuroo with limited success.

“Because you did,” Kuroo insists. “You can stick to the ‘I don’t care about volleyball’ act as much as you want, but I know better.”

“You don’t know anything,” Kenma mutters, drawing his knees up to his chest. Kuroo’s still leaned towards him, his gentle prodding finally a pause. Something sly flashes in his eyes.

“I know _everything_ ,” he pronounces grandly. He turns to look behind them at the rest of the team, looking for support. “Isn’t that right, Yaku?”

Morisuke, who’d been on the verge of sleep, growls back. “Shut up, Kuroo.”

“I put up with so much,” Kuroo mutters under his breath. 

“We put up with you,” Kenma tells him. He likes being around Kuroo, spending time with him, but the fact remains that his personality is a little exhausting. 

Kuroo lifts his chin and flashes a wicked grin. “You _love_ me,” he declares flippantly. 

The entire world seems to freeze, for a moment. It’s exactly the sort of bland, overconfident statement that Kuroo’s made a million times in the past. And Kenma’s never thought too hard about those statements, because all they’ve been worthy of is a roll of his eyes or a dismissive comment in return. 

But now, it’s different. Because he does love Kuroo. 

The silence has gone on too long; Kuroo, expecting a quick response, looks at Kenma and blinks, confused. Kenma opens his mouth, but the only thing he can think of is— _yes, you’re right, please say you love me, too_. And there’s no way he can say that.

“Kenma,” Kuroo starts, but Kenma holds up a hand, cutting him off.

“Shut up now,” he says, pulling out his 3DS. “I need to concentrate. Final boss.”

The tension is thick between them, gathering heat that could spark and ignite at any moment. But after a moment’s pause, they both turn away from it. Kuroo merely nods and tilts his head back to rest against the headrest, shutting his eyes and feigning sleep. 

Kenma dives back into _Ocarina of Time_ , but instead of Zelda and Link, he sees himself and Kuroo, at ages six and seven, eleven and twelve, sixteen and seventeen. He’s scared to imagine them beyond this point, sitting on an old bus driving home from Miyagi, because he has no idea what the future holds.

\--

It’s raining when they get back to Tokyo. It’s warm spring rain, but that only makes it more uncomfortable as he and Kuroo trudge back to their street, sneakers squelching uncomfortably against the sidewalk. 

Because it’s raining, Kenma can’t hide his nose in a screen like he usually does. Sometimes, when Kuroo has an umbrella, he’ll hold it up over Kenma to protect his electronics while they both walk. But they hadn’t expected the weather, so Kuroo’s unprepared. Kenma’s not sure what he would have done in the face of such casual intimacy right now, anyway.

They pause outside of Kenma’s house. It’s early evening, and Kenma can see the light on in the kitchen—his mother, at least, must already be home from work. He’s about to head for the front door when Kuroo grabs his wrist, stopping him.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “Can we talk, for a second?”

Kenma swallows, tastes bitterness in the back of his mouth. “What is there to talk about?”

He hears Kuroo sigh quietly behind him, his grip still strong around Kenma’s wrist. “A lot of things. Can you please not pretend not to know what I’m talking about?”

His voice is quiet, almost plaintive. It doesn’t suit him at all. Kenma’s always been the hesitant one, the one who shies away from conflict. Kuroo is supposed to be the brave one.

“I don’t,” Kenma responds stubbornly, tugging his arm away from Kuroo and stepping back. “It’s gross out here. I’m going inside.”

“Just wait a second,” Kuroo calls out, but Kenma isn’t brave enough to stay. 

He rushes for the door, slamming it shut behind him and throwing off his wet sneakers. He hears his mother’s voice calling out to him from the kitchen, but he doesn’t respond. He takes the stairs two at a time, only pausing to catch his breath once he’s reached his bedroom. 

He hears a muffled shout from outside, and shifts hesitantly towards his window. He pulls up the blinds and looks out at the sidewalk, where Kuroo still stands. His eyes find Kenma at his window immediately, pinning him with a stare that looks resigned, and sad.

Kenma stares out his window for long moments, but Kuroo doesn’t move. The rain flattens his hair against his head, shadowing one side of his face entirely. He keeps his head tilted upwards, his eyes on Kenma’s window even when Kenma’s breath hitches and he has to move away. 

He doesn’t know how long Kuroo stays out there, soaked from head to toe as he waits for Kenma. He’s too scared to look back and find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been awhile since i've updated this fic, and for that i apologize! for those of you still sticking with me or reading this for the first time, thank you. this chapter is a bit shorter as i readjust to the rhythm of this story, but i'm hopeful that i'll have the next up very soon.
> 
> as always, any feedback you have is always welcome.
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](https://newamsterdame.tumblr.com) & [twitter](https://twitter.com/newamsterdame)!


	4. the wind waker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Doesn’t it get exhausting? Someone needing you, all the time?”_
> 
> _“You say that as though it’s one-sided.”_

The rain has cleared by morning. They’d spent almost the entirety of Golden Week in Miyagi, and now it’s back to school for classes and practice and routine. Kenma shifts uncomfortably as he gets himself ready, pulling at his tie and frowning at his reflection in the mirror.

Coward, he thinks darkly. 

He blinks in surprise when he leaves his house and finds Kuroo waiting at the corner, like he has been every day since Kenma started high school. His posture is slightly stooped and his hair is even messier than usual, like he didn’t even try to tame it this morning. His skin looks too pale, his tie loosely knotted and his shirt wrinkled.

Kuroo looks like a complete mess.

“Morning,” he says to Kenma, flashing a smile and lilting his voice. But he sounds like his throat has been scraped raw. His lips are pale and his eyes are rimmed with red.

Kenma doesn’t even have the time to wonder at Kuroo’s kindness, at his ability to pretend like nothing at all happened between them last night. There’s no anger in him, even though Kenma hasn’t been fair to him, at all.

But Kenma isn’t dwelling on those things, because he’s pissed off as soon as he gets a good look at Kuroo.

“You look terrible.”

Kuroo shifts his arm to cough into his elbow. “Well, _excuse_ me, Kenma. That was kind of rude.” 

“Go home. Go to bed.” Kenma starts walking down the sidewalk, frowning when Kuroo falls instep beside him.

“I’m fine,” Kuroo says, a little harshly. His next words are muttered, but Kenma hears them anyway. “No one said you had to care.” 

Kenma isn’t like Kuroo— he doesn’t keep pushing, even when he knows Kuroo is lying. So he merely shrugs, and they walk towards the train station in silence. The train towards their school is packed with commuters, and Kuroo insists Kenma take the one empty seat as he stands, gripping a railing and swaying on his feet every time the train takes a sharp turn. 

\--

They go their separate ways once they reach the school, and Kuroo doesn’t appear in the doorway for lunch. Kenma shrugs at that and taps his way through his game, telling himself that he doesn’t care.

He and Kuroo have fought before. Not often, because Kenma doesn’t think many things are worth fighting over and Kuroo and he agree on most things that are important. But there had been squabbles, when they were younger, and a more serious fight in Kuroo’s first year of junior high that was probably the product of both of them being frustrated at not being able to see each other all the time.

But they aren’t really fighting now, are they? They haven’t disagreed on anything, because Kenma hasn’t let Kuroo say anything at all. He feels like he’s wobbling on a tightrope, ready to tip over onto on side or the other. That feeling would be exhausting when suffered for even a moment, but now Kenma’s been feeling that tipping anxiety for weeks. He’s spent so long trying not to fall that he’s forgotten what solid ground feels like.

He remembers to eat a few spoonfulls of his lunch before the bell rings, at least.

\--

The team is buzzing with excitement when Kenma arrives at the gym. Half of them are already dressed out and going through their stretches, accompanied by the majority of Fukurodani’s starting lineup. Kuroo hasn’t arrived, yet. 

Kenma had once again neglected to glance at his club schedule this morning, but apparently they’re hosting Fukurodani’s team for a practice match. Nekoma usually gets together with the other Tokyo schools during Golden Week, but Coach Nekomata had rearranged their entire schedule for their trip to Miyagi. But, never one to waste an opportunity, he’d also invited Fukurodani to come over today.

Kenma sighs and hunches forward, letting his hair shield his eyes as he heads from the gym to the clubroom to get dressed. Matches against Fukurodani are usually particularly exhausting, because Bokuto and Kuroo fuel each other’s energy and do their best to get their teams as fired up as possible. After a week of practice matches and their grueling marathon against Karasuno, Kenma’s not looking forward to it.

The clubroom door is slightly ajar as Kenma approaches, and he pauses when he hears soft voices coming from inside. He’s not prone to curiosity, usually, but he recognizes one of those voices. Stepping lightly, he cranes his head so that he can glance into the room without being noticed.

Bokuto and Kuroo are standing in the far corner of the clubroom, facing each other with Kuroo’s back towards the door. Bokuto’s already dressed for their match in his practice clothes and kneepads, but Kuroo looks as though he’d only gotten halfway through the process— he has his black t-shirt pulled on over his uniform slacks, his school shirt gripped in one hand as he gestures with the other. 

“No, no,” Bokuto says insistently, his brow furrowed with concern, “I’m sure it’s not like that!” His voice gets progressively louder, even though it’s pitched low. He probably thinks that he’s whispering. 

Kuroo responds, but his voice is so low and soft that Kenma can’t make out what he’s saying.

“H-hey,” Bokuto says, reaching out to grip both of Kuroo’s shoulders. “Don’t be sad, please?”

Kenma sees Kuroo shake his head. Then it looks like all the strength leaves his body abruptly, and he pitches forward against Bokuto, resting his forehead against Bokuto’s shoulder as the other captain wraps his strong arms around Kuroo. 

The two of them have always been close, ever since Kuroo met Bokuto in his first year of high school. But there’s always been a distinct tone to their friendship— competitive and mocking and a little hyperbolic, most of the time. Kenma knows they care about each other, but he’s never seen them looking so… tender.

Something ugly curls in his chest at the sight, but he can’t separate out the different emotions. Seeing Kuroo upset, even if he can’t make out his expressions or words, is like a punch in the gut. But seeing him seeking comfort from someone else evokes a different emotion entirely, something petty and cold.

Kenma backtracks two steps away from the door, and crashes into someone. They both manage to stay on their feet, but it takes Kenma a moment to reorient himself, rubbing at the back of his now-aching head as eyes focus on Akaashi Keiji.

“Kozume,” the other setter says evenly, “Are you alright?”

\--

Akaashi says he needs to find a vending machine to get Bokuto a sports drink, and somehow Kenma ends up guiding him away from the clubrooms. The area is mostly deserted when they get there, the afternoon sun casting shadows between the rafters.

Akaashi doesn’t speak as he selects which drink to buy, but once he’s grabbed it out of the machine he turns around and leans against the wall, looking at Kenma expectantly.

Kenma stares at his feet instead of back at Akaashi, uncomfortable under his dark-eyed scrutiny. The two of them have never had the same easy camaraderie as Bokuto and Kuroo. Kenma respects Akaashi, and realizes that they have a lot in common. But Akaashi always seems to unaffected, so effortlessly calm, and Kenma can’t help but feel more awkward in his presence. 

He’s Fukurodani’s vice captain, too, which speaks to his ability to manage people. He’s probably just as strategic as Kenma on the court, but he also has an another entire set of skills. It’s like he has all of Kenma’s strengths and none of his weaknesses. 

The silence drags until finally Kenma mutters, “What is it?”

“You looked like you needed to talk,” Akaashi says simply.

His cheeks burn at the thought of being so easily read. “Why would I want to talk to you?” he asks, not unkindly.

Akaashi shrugs minutely. “You probably don’t, not to me in particular. But I didn’t see anyone else around and…”

He trails off, like he’s just considering how strange his offer might sound to Kenma. He blushes slightly, then clears his throat.

“It’s an offer,” he says, pursing his lips at the end of his words. 

“You were going to get Bokuto from the clubroom,” Kenma says, after a moment. 

Akaashi blinks, then nods. “Yes. That does seem to be my usual duty.”

“You take care of him,” Kenma says flatly, like it’s just another observation. And it’s true enough— Kenma didn’t know Bokuto very well two years ago, but anyone can see how he’s changed since Akaashi joined Fukurodani’s team. He’s still erratic, but Akaashi grounds him. He still oscillates between high moods and low ones, but the highs seem to last longer now, and hold steady at happiness for long stretches.

Akaashi’s cheeks color a deeper shade of red. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“I think he would,” Kenma says. 

Akaashi grips his fingers around the sports drink, slotting them between each other. “Did this have a point?” 

“You offered,” Kenma reminds him.

Akaashi’s smile is thin and doesn’t reach his eyes. “So I did. But I didn’t think you would be asking me about my relationship with Bokuto-san.”

Kenma shrugs. There’s something hovering at the edge of his awareness, a piece of the puzzle that he needs to find before he can move forward.

“Doesn’t it get exhausting? Someone needing you, all the time?”

Akaashi tilts his head, regarding Kenma thoughtfully. “You say that as though it’s one-sided.”

Isn’t it? Kenma doesn’t vocalize the thought, but it’s his first response to Akaashi’s statement. He spends most of his time watching people rather than interacting with them, and he’s seen how Akaashi and Bokuto are with each other. Akaashi is diligent and attentive, always knows exactly what to say to Bokuto. And what does Bokuto give back?

Beneath those thoughts, he’s aware of the fact that he’s not only thinking of Bokuto and Akaashi. It’s a darker thought, one that’s been burrowing deeper and deeper.

Kenma’s well aware of the fact that he needs Kuroo. He’s just not convinced that Kuroo needs him, in return.

Akaashi glances at the clock on the far wall and clears his throat. “I’m not sure I helped, but we have to go back to the gym eventually.”

Kenma just nods and starts walking back. His problems can’t be solved by Akaashi, especially when he’s going to say such incomprehensible things.

\--

Coach Nekomata takes one look at Kuroo and tells him to sit out. Kuroo puffs out his chest and refuses, fixing the coach with his most stubborn stare. 

The two of them aren’t obvious about it, but it’s the worst-kept secret on Nekoma’s team that Kuroo is their coach’s favorite student. Kuroo has exactly the kind of sly intelligence that Nekomata values, and he’s just as committed to building Nekoma back up to greatness. It’s not uncommon to see the two of them huddled together after a match, comparing notes and laughing quietly amongst themselves. 

Obvious bias or not, Nekomata caves and believes Kuroo when he says he’s well enough to play. Kuroo takes his place on the court, and for the first time he doesn’t look back at Kenma. The team huddles around him, waiting to hear his typical speech, but Kuroo just shakes his head and waves them towards their starting positions. 

“Let’s not push my luck, yeah?” he mutters, running a hand over his face. There’s sweat beading at his temples. 

They’re off-beat from the start. Morisuke keeps frowning and looking between Kuroo and Kenma, as if waiting for them to lock eyes and synergize like they normally do. He misses two receives in the first six points, which leaves the first years gaping at him. Taketora is more on edge than excited, and quickly becomes overtaxed by the fact that Kenma keeps sending him tosses that he could send to Kuroo. The others fall out of their usual rhythm, scrambling to reform the connections that are the center of Nekoma’s strength.

It doesn’t work. Fukurodani is hardly in top form, but they still manage to overpower Nekoma over and over again. More than once, Bokuto looks like he’s going to say something to Kuroo from across the net, but then thinks better of it. Kenma catches Akaashi watching him too perceptively, as though he’s figured out exactly what has transpired. 

But that’s just it, isn’t it? _Nothing_ has actually happened. Kenma’s made sure of that.

They lose the first set abysmally. Nekomata calls them over to a huddle, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at his team with narrowed eyes.

“Is there something wrong?” he asks in a tone that implies more of a statement. He knows something’s wrong, and he wants them to fix it.

Kuroo’s busy draining his water bottle and avoiding looking at anyone in particular. “It’s fine,” he says eventually. “We’ll pick it up in the next set. Right?”

He’s much less intimidating when he looks like he’s about to fall over at any minute. But Kenma has to wonder how much the others see that—Kuroo holds himself upright and squares his shoulders, tipping his chin up. Maybe he’s gotten so good at projecting strength and independence that the others can’t even conceive of Kuroo in a moment of weakness.

Nekomata just sighs and gestures for them to head to the opposite side of the court. Kuroo leads the line, and Kenma purposefully positions himself at the rear. Before he can walk away from the bench, he senses Nekomata’s eyes on him.

He hurries away before the coach can say anything.

\--

Kuroo is standing as vanguard and Kenma is on the back line. They’re halfway through the second set, and Kenma can see the way that Kuroo’s swaying on his feet. Nobuyuki serves, and Komi receives as Akaashi runs up to meet the ball. He tosses it to Bokuto, and Kenma sees Nekoma’s front line move into position, preparing to block.

Kuroo’s greatest asset has always been his timing, but his preciseness is hampered today. He bends his knees, preparing to jump, but his movements are slightly delayed. He misjudged the trajectory of Bokuto’s spike.

It happens as though in slow motion—Kuroo’s still in midair when the ball dips, and Kenma has no chance to move and warn him before it slams directly into Kuroo’s face, pushing him backwards with the strength of Bokuto’s spike. 

Kuroo staggers backwards, falling hard against the court as everyone around him freezes.

“Holy shit,” Bokuto says, eyes wide and hands over his mouth. “Kuroo, are you okay? _Kuroo_!” 

Nobuyuki and Taketora are already running forward, Nobuyuki propping Kuroo up and Taketora shaking him slightly, which probably isn’t helpful. Bokuto is scrambling over from the other side of the net as the coaches approach. 

And Kenma stands in the back corner of the court, utterly frozen. 

\--

By the time Nekomata kneels down beside him, Kuroo’s already pushing everyone away, mumbling out that he’s fine as he struggles to get to his feet. Nobuyuki keeps hold of one of his arms, helping him stand as Nekomata asks him questions in a stern, hushed voice. Eventually, the coach seems satisfied, and steps back with a shake of his head.

“You need to go to the nurse’s office,” he says with finality. He holds up a hand when Kuroo opens his mouth to argue. “And then you’re going home.”

Kuroo opens his mouth to argue, and then winces in pain. “Fine,” he mutters.

Nekomata nods at Nobuyuki. “Kai, would you—”

“I’ll take him.” Kenma steps forward and tucks himself against Kuroo’s side, draping one of Kuroo’s arms over his shoulders.

Nekomata looks at him. “We don’t have an alternate setter.”

“It’s not like we were going to win, anyway.” Kenma mumbles. He starts tugging Kuroo towards the door, but the other boy is unsteady on his feet and keeps trying to edge away from him. “Come on,” he says in his most authoritative voice. “You’re a mess, and we’re going to the nurse.”

Kuroo goes still, then slumps against Kenma. “Okay.”

\--

Kuroo is heavy when he can’t manage his own weight, and Kenma staggers with him through the hallways, growing increasingly annoyed.

“Come on,” he keeps repeating. “One foot in front of the other.”

“Trying,” Kuroo mutters. His brow is furrowed, and his head probably hasn’t stopped aching yet. His voice, already rough from his sore throat, now sounds far away and dizzy.

They make it to the nurse’s office eventually. There’s a player from the baseball team there, getting his wrist put in a brace, but aside from him and the nurse the small office is deserted. The nurse takes one look at Kuroo and shakes her head, nodding towards the cots in the back of the office.

“Sit him down there, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Kenma practically throws Kuroo onto the cot, eager to be rid of his weight. Kuroo slumps backwards immediately, reaching out to pull the thin pillow down over his eyes.

“What’s that for,” Kenma mumbles, pulling it away from him. 

Kuroo clutches the pillow with both hands, hiding his face. “I don’t feel good,” he whines.

Kenma shakes his head. “Obviously.”

Kuroo pouts. “Don’t be mean to me. I’m sick.”

“I’m not being mean,” Kenma tells him evenly. “I told you to stay home this morning.”

“Meanly,” Kuroo says, turning over to face the wall.

Kenma pokes him in the side. “Not everyone is as nice as you, all of the time.”

Kuroo speaks to the wall, something that Kenma can’t make out.

“What?”

“…’m not nice,” Kuroo mumbles.

Kenma blinks. “That’s not true.”

Kuroo shakes his head, then winces again. “Totally true,” he says, words slurring together. “I’m… selfish.”

Kenma sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed, looking down at Kuroo with determination. “Explain.”

“Noo,” Kuroo whines, hiding his face more in the pillow. Kenma sighs and reaches for it, this time managing to pull it out of Kuroo’s weak grasp. “Noo,” he says again. “Give it back.”

“Tell me what you meant,” Kenma insists.

“You’re mad at me,” Kuroo says, frowning at him.

“No, I’m not.” Kenma says the words automatically, but they are true. He isn’t mad at Kuroo; he’s mad at himself.

“I don’t like it when you’re mad at me.”

“I’m _not_ mad at you,” Kenma snaps.

“Yes, you are.” Kuroo sighs, reaching up to clutch at his temples, curling up on the cot that is far too small for his lanky frame. “And I’m selfish, ‘cause I didn’t want to do anything to make you mad, because I don’t want to lose you.”

“Huh?”

Kuroo talks to the wall instead of Kenma. “If you stay mad at me, you’ll go away.”

Kuroo looks so small, curled up with his skin pale and his eyes glassy. A wave of tenderness washes over Kenma, and he reaches out to brush Kuroo’s sweat-damp hair away from his face.

“I’m not mad at you. And where would I go, anyway?”

“Into your head,” Kuroo mumbles. “You go far away from everyone, but usually not me. And I can’t stand it when you do it, because I miss you.”

Kenma’s heart stutters in his chest. “…what?”

“You won’t talk to me, and I miss you.” Kuroo buries his face against the cot’s papery sheets. “If I tell you, you’ll go even further away.”

Kenma glances over at the nurse—she’s still busy with the baseball player, apparently completely oblivious to their conversation. 

He keeps his voice hushed. “What do you want to tell me?”

Kuroo shakes his head, but keeps talking anyway. Kenma doesn’t know if it’s the fever, or the blow to the head, or some combination, but Kuroo’s never been this open. “I don’t want to be the one that makes you sad.”

“You don’t,” Kenma insists. “You… you make me happy, Kuro.”

Kuroo shakes his head more vehemently, then groans in pain. “No. Not lately.”

“That’s not your fault,” Kenma mutters. “I promise.”

“But you’re still sad.” 

Kenma purses his lips. “I’m not,” he starts, trying to backtrack.

Kuroo just shakes his head. “Then why’re you crying?”

 _Oh_.

Kenma reaches up and pats at the skin beneath his eyes. He isn’t actively crying, but his eyes are damp. Maybe they have been, ever since he saw Kuroo get smacked in the head with a volleyball, and realized for a terrible moment that something could _happen_ to Kuroo, and Kenma wouldn’t be able to stop it. 

“I never want to be the person to make you cry,” Kuroo tells him. His voice would sound conspiratorial if he wasn’t so out of it. “And that’s why I’m never going to tell you that I love you, ‘cause you’ll go far away.”

Something inside of his chest is screaming, desperate to claw its way out of him. _Kuroo loves him_.

“I… what,” Kenma says, unable to string two words together properly. “You what?”

Kuroo smiles at him slyly. “I like you,” he brags. “But I’m never going to tell you. I decided, after last night.”

Kenma gapes at him. It’s just like Kuroo, to hold something so important to his chest, all for someone else’s benefit. How long would he have held onto this? _Forever_.

“You… you’re so stupid!” Kenma says, forgetting to keep his voice down.

Kuroo frowns. “No,” he says, thoughtful. “I’m really smart. I’m going to go to college.”

The nurse is turning around, sending the other student on his way. “All right, volleyball club,” she says. “What’s the problem?”

“I hit my head,” Kuroo tells her. “Or, I’m sick?” He’s looking increasingly confused.

“Both,” Kenma says, his voice coming out as a squeak. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

He rushes back into the hallway, leaning against the wall and letting himself sink slowly to the floor as he covers his face with his hands. His skin feels too hot, like he’s the one with the fever instead of Kuroo. All he can think of is the tenderness of Kuroo’s gaze, his eyes like melted butter as he’d stated his feelings so blandly.

 _Kuroo loves him_.

And now Kenma has no excuse—he has to tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kuroo's not in any real physical danger, in case anyone was worried. 
> 
> as always, any feedback you have is always welcome.
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/) & [twitter](https://twitter.com/newamsterdame)!


	5. twilight princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That’s why he needs you_.
> 
> That idea lights up every positive emotion that Kenma’s ever felt. He wants so desperately to believe those words, because if they are true, then they justify everything he now knows he feels for Kuroo.

He’s seven years old when the last empty house on the street is bought, when a new family moves in with little fanfare. He notices the way the neighborhood women stop by to chat to his mother, carrying gossip on their tongues about their new neighbors. Kenma usually finds somewhere quiet to play when he hears someone knock on the door. He doesn’t like being under the scrutiny of the neighborhood ladies, who pinch his cheeks or pat the top of his head. He doesn’t like the disappointed looks his own mother gives him when he ducks out of the way, or darts up the stairs to get away from their company. So he’s already learning to avoid those situations entirely. 

Still, he hears things. His parents discuss the new neighbors over dinner, their words floating above Kenma’s head as picks at his plate. She’s a single woman, his mother says with an air of superiority. Nothing wrong with that, his father replies, but how’s she affording that house? There’s the boy, too, his mother comments skeptically. I wonder how much she got in the divorce? 

At seven years old, Kenma hasn’t yet mastered putting all of these details together, gleaning the whole picture from just one angle or another. 

There are a dozen or more children living on his street, which was built, after all, for nuclear families. He can hear them outside his window, hollering at each other, chasing each other down the road. They aren’t unfriendly, but he can never seem to gather the courage to approach them when he comes home from school, no matter how many times his mother asks him if he’d like to stay out and play. 

He never sees the new neighbor’s son playing with them, either. 

It’s a few weeks later, when he’s walking up the street with his mother, that he spots a person he’s never seen before. She’s a tall woman, maybe ten or twelve centimeters taller than his mother, with thick black hair that falls down her back in jagged waves. She holds herself perfectly straight, shoulders square and chin in the air. There’s a boy with her, his hair much shorter but just as dark and untamed, clutching to the woman’s hand and chattering to her. 

Kenma’s mother tugs him along, intending to walk straight past their new neighbors. But just as they’re level with one another, headed in opposite directions, Kenma looks up and accidently catches the other boy’s gaze.

His eyes are a dark gold, half-hidden beneath drooped lids as he looks Kenma up and down. 

He should acknowledge him, somehow, Kenma thinks. He never reaches out to people first, but there’s a sudden impulse in the back of his mind, telling him not to ignore this boy. 

So he lifts his hand just a bit in an abortive wave.

Suddenly, the other boy’s face breaks out into a grin. His lips part, revealing all of his teeth as he waves back, much more enthusiastically. 

The moment lasts only a second. They’re pulled away in opposite directions, and Kenma sighs to himself, thinking that the moment didn’t really matter at all.

\--

Three months later, Kuroo rolls over on Kenma’s rug and stares up at the ceiling. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go outside?” he asks, while Kenma keeps his eyes glued to the television screen.

“No.” He’s busy tapping out a combo on his gamepad, Link executing a series of circular sword strikes on the screen. 

“Just for a little while?” Kuroo goads. “Oh, I know! We could play volleyball. I bet you’d like it, if you tried it just once.” 

“You say that every day.” He hits another button, calling up his shield just before the forest monster starts hurling seeds at Link. 

“Because you never say you’ll try it.” Kuroo’s pouting; Kenma can tell without looking away from the television. 

He stifles a sigh as one of the monster’s roots hits Link, knocking down his heart meter. “I don’t like playing volleyball.”

“You’ve never done it, before,” Kuroo complains. “You can’t say that.”

Kenma scowls, directing Link into a roll to dodge the next attack. “So, what? If I had played, you’d leave it alone?”

“Hmm,” Kuroo says, his voice going low like he’s thinking this over. Kenma’s quickly learned that this is when Kuroo is at his most dangerous. “Yeah, I guess so. If you try it once, and you don’t like it, I won’t ask you to play again.” 

It’s a tempting offer. Kuroo’s been obsessed with the sport for weeks, now, even once daring to change the settings on the television so that he could watch a professional match instead of Kenma’s latest video game. 

The monster hurls another seed, hitting Link square in the chest. Kenma grits his teeth as the screen goes dark, indicating game over. 

“Fine,” he bites out. 

“Yes!” Kuroo pumps a hand in the air. “Come on, get your sneakers on! It’ll be fun, I promise!”

\--

It isn’t fun. The sun beats down heavily, and Kenma can feel his cheeks growing red under its rays. Kuroo darts around the field, moving things around and calling out explanations to Kenma. Kenma’s only half-listening—there’s something about a net and six players, or was it seven? He figures it doesn’t really matter, because as soon as he tries this once he’ll be done with it forever. 

Other neighbors pass by on the sidewalk, waving or rushing past. Sometimes, their eyes linger on Kuroo, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Kenma does, however, and frowns. He hears the things people say about Kuroo’s family, pays more attention now that he and Kuroo are friends. 

“Okay, got it?” Kuroo asks, rushing back to where Kenma’s standing.

“Huh? Yeah. I guess so.” Kenma’s staring down at the grass, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Great.” Kuroo’s grinning at him, looking blissfully happy. He rolls the volleyball between his palms. “I’ll go over there, and hit the ball to you. Just hold your hands together the way I showed you, and try to hit it back! Okay?”

“Fine.” Kenma watches as Kuroo darts away, then tries to get into something of the position Kuroo had shown him. Was it legs bent, or legs straight? And what was he supposed to be doing with his hands…? 

“Ready?” Kuroo calls out. He barely waits for a response before he hits the ball over. Kenma watches it with nervous eyes, following its arc through the air, trying to gauge when it’ll be close enough to hit back. 

But then the ball is suddenly _very_ close, and Kenma raises his hands instinctively to protect himself. Something bounces off of his wrists with considerable force, and when he opens his eyes the ball is lying a few meters away in the grass as Kuroo jogs towards him.

“Not bad,” Kuroo says, retrieving the ball. “But normally you receive underhand. And try to keep your eyes open, this time.”

“Stop making fun of me,” Kenma mutters.

Kuroo cackles as he runs back to his previous position. Kenma grinds his teeth, but bends his knees and positions his hands one on top of the other. Kuroo smacks the ball towards him, and Kenma takes a deep breath, determined to do better this time.

The ball comes down towards him, and Kenma lifts his hands to meet it. But he miscalculates, and the ball hits his wrist and heads upwards, smacking him in the nose before Kenma’s even registered what’s happened. He falls backwards, landing on his butt in the grass, stunned as the ball lands somewhere away from him. 

Kuroo’s already running towards him. “Are you—okay?” His voice is breaking, but not out of concern. Kuroo’s clutching his sides, trying to keep his laughter at bay. In a moment, when Kenma isn’t quite so stunned, he’ll be utterly indignant. 

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo says, still laughing, having seen the shift in Kenma’s expression. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean it, just—” He’s crowing now, laughing so hard that he can’t even breathe, his face turning red as he inhales shakily only to laugh even harder as a result. 

“Stop laughing at me!” Kenma snaps, eyes blazing as he glares at Kuroo. 

“I’m not trying to,” Kuroo protests, though Kenma thinks he could try harder to _stop_. “I always—laugh at the wrong moment—sorry, sorry.” 

“I didn’t even want to play your stupid game,” Kenma mutters rubbing his hands along his face, checking for damage. His nose is throbbing, but he’s hit it worse, before. He had been more startled, than anything.

“I know,” Kuroo wheezes. “But, don’t stop playing with me, okay?” 

Something about the way he says it is more honest than Kuroo probably intends to be. Kenma feels something clench around his heart, an entirely foreign emotion.

He huffs. “Of course, I won’t.”

\--

Maybe it’s always been like that, between them. Kenma wakes up on the day after Nekoma’s practice match with Fukurodani in a daze, memories and dreams swimming around in his head and all blending together. Maybe he’s been thinking about this all wrong—as much as he relies on Kuroo, as much as he follows Kuroo’s lead, maybe that’s not entirely one-sided. Maybe Kuroo’s always been turned towards him, too. 

He knows what he has to do. It’s just going to be a pain.

But he’s made his decision. So by mid-morning, he’s standing in front of Kuroo’s front door. He knocks twice before pushing it open. It’s been years since he’s had to ask permission to enter this house. He leaves his shoes by the door and nudges his feet into the extra pair of slippers that’s always waiting for him. There’s noise coming from the kitchen, so he heads there first.

Kuroo’s mother is standing over the stove, humming along to a pop song playing over the radio as she stirs something in a large iron pot. She has her thick hair piled on top of her head, the sleeves of her crimson blouse rolled up to her elbows.

“Hi, Miyuki,” Kenma says softly. 

She turns abruptly, surprised. But she recovers quickly, flashing Kenma a smile that looks too much like her son’s. “Ah, Kenma. I wondered if we were going to see you, today.”

Kenma shrugs. His presence should make the answer to that clear.

Miyuki smiles, though there’s something calculating in her eyes. “It’s been awhile, though. Though I suppose Tetsurou is keeping you busy with volleyball.” 

Kenma shifts on his feet, nodding. 

Miyuki nods, more to herself than to Kenma. “That kid’s got a one-track mind, that’s for sure. Even after I picked him up from school yesterday, he just kept going on about the match. And about you, too. So maybe it’s a two-track mind.” 

Kenma knows his cheeks are growing pink, and he ducks his head, hoping his hair will cover the change. After what Kuroo had said to him yesterday, he doesn’t want to know what he might’ve let slip to his mother. It’s too mortifying to even consider. 

“Mm,” Miyuki says, half-turning back to the stove. “He’s been quiet lately, though. And a little moody, if you ask me. Did something happen?” 

Kenma quickly shakes his head before realizing Miyuki probably won’t see the motion. “No,” he says quietly. “Everything’s been normal.”

It isn’t a lie, is it? Because nothing has happened, because Kenma hasn’t let it. And that void of inaction has stretched between him and Kuroo, weighing on both of them, with the end result being this—Kuroo’s sick, and Kenma knows where he stands, but Kuroo doesn’t know anything about how Kenma feels.

What a mess. 

Miyuki clicks her tongue. “I’ve been blessed with a foolish son,” she says, ladling stew from the pot on the stove into a bowl. “He’s smart about some things, and very stupid about others. That’s why he needs you, Kenma. You’ve got to help him along with the things he can’t do himself.”

 _That’s why he needs you_.

That idea lights up every positive emotion that Kenma’s ever felt. He wants so desperately to believe those words, because if they are true, then they justify everything he now knows he feels for Kuroo. He won’t have to be guilty for wanting Kuroo’s affections but not offering him anything in return. He can hope that what Kuroo claims to feel is real. Because it’ll be alright then, won’t it? If everything is equal between them.

“You know, Kenma, you’re quieter than usual,” Miyuki says, standing before him with a bowl of stew and a glass of juice. “If you wouldn’t mind, would you take this upstairs to Tetsurou? He hasn’t eaten, today.” 

\--

It’s a strange reversal. Usually it’s Kuroo who appears in Kenma’s doorway with food, claiming that he _knows_ Kenma hasn’t yet eaten and intending to make sure that he does. So it’s strange that that’s become Kenma’s role, but it isn’t an altogether bad feeling. He thinks he might like the opportunity to take care of Kuroo, the way Kuroo has always taken care of him.

He nudges Kuroo’s bedroom door open with his hip, carefully balancing the meal Miyuki had sent him upstairs with. The curtains are drawn over Kuroo’s bedroom window, but light filters in through the thin white material. Kuroo’s usually particular about the state of his room, but Kenma has to dodge his sneakers and gym bag to get to the bed. Kuroo must have really been out of it when he’d gotten home, yesterday. 

Kuroo himself is lying stomach-down on his bed, shifting a bit restlessly beneath the mountain of blankets and pillows piled on top of him. Kenma recognizes a blush-colored pillowcase from Miyuki’s bedroom; she must’ve piled Kuroo with her own bedding last night, since he’s sick. 

Kenma remembers, with startling clarity, a day from five or six years ago. Kuroo had stayed home from school, sick with some terrible flu. Kenma had gone directly to Kuroo’s house on his way home, knocking furiously at the door until Miyuki had let him inside. Kuroo had been tucked into Miyuki’s large bed, trapped in place by too many blankets as his mother tried to keep him still long enough for him to sleep off the flu. 

To his recollection, the younger Kuroo had been impossibly small, his cheeks flushed with fever as he’d reassured Kenma that he was fine, that he’d be back to school in a day or two, that there was nothing at all to worry about. 

Now, Kuroo’s a long mess of limbs and hair as Kenma sets down the bowl of stew and starts prying pillows away from the bed. Finally, Kuroo stirs, rolling over in bed and blinking up at Kenma with surprise lighting his sleep-glazed eyes. 

“Kenma,” he breathes out, voice soft and tender. Then he sneezes so hard it shakes his whole body, and Kenma jumps back two steps to avoid the worst of it. 

The fit of sneezing gives Kenma a moment’s reprieve, and he’s grateful for it. Because he couldn’t have predicted how seeing Kuroo would _feel_ , after yesterday. He looks exactly the same, and yet Kenma’s every cell is magnetized and focused towards him, longing for contact and closeness. 

He really does love Kuroo, so much that it’s overwhelming. He was so stupid, to not have realized it sooner.

“Kenma?” Kuroo asks, sitting up in bed now and tossing his soiled tissues in the trash. 

Kenma blinks at him, then pushes the bowl of stew towards him. “You haven’t eaten,” he says pointedly.

“Ah? Oh, thanks.” Kuroo takes the bowl and rearranges himself on the bed, cross-legged now with his back against the headboard. 

Kuroo starts eating, loudly and messily, and Kenma’s left standing by the bed, observing him carefully. But Kuroo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything to indicate that he remembers what he said to Kenma the day before. And if that’s the case, it makes the rest of this so much harder. 

Kuroo sets the bowl aside, grinning up at Kenma wanly. “You’re here,” he says, and it’s like everything is completely normal. 

Kenma freezes deliberately, waiting for Kuroo to say something more. If he does remember yesterday, he’ll want to address it immediately. He’ll want to clear the air, to tell Kenma that he doesn’t need to worry about it. Because of course he’ll try to reframe things into something Kenma can be comfortable with, putting Kenma’s emotions before his own.

If he only knew. 

Kenma clears his throat. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, yeah? About what?” Kuroo leans forward, just slightly. Does he always do that, when Kenma talks to him?

“You know… yesterday…” Kenma grips his hands together behind his back, squeezing them together to ground himself. 

“Yeah?” Kuroo prompts again. His eyes still look a little hazy, the skin around his eyes dark. Kenma pauses to watch him, to be sure he’ll understand what Kenma is about to say.

“You keep saying… we should talk about it…” Why are the words coming so slowly? Why are they all crowding at the tip of his tongue, refusing to move forward on their own? 

Kuroo blinks up at him. “Ah, Kenma, it’s okay—”

“I—I want to talk about it, now,” Kenma says, all in a rush. He looks up again, meeting Kuroo’s gaze, but that’s a mistake. Because Kuroo’s eyes are soft and his mouth is hanging slightly open, and suddenly Kenma feels dwarfed by his presence. It’s one thing to say it inside his own head, to admit these feelings to himself. But how is he ever going to manage to actually say it aloud? Even knowing that Kuroo feels the same way, he can’t do it. It’s too overwhelming. 

“I…” He’s frozen. His mouth is still half-open, tongue pressed against his teeth. And Kuroo’s just sitting there, looking puzzled, leaning towards him like a plant growing towards the sun. 

“Are you okay?” Kuroo asks.

He should be, Kenma thinks acidly. What else could possibly be wrong, now? All he has to do is say it, and then—

And then what? He has no idea what the next step is. What Kuroo’s reaction will be, or what Kuroo will want from him. He doesn’t know that he wants his relationship with Kuroo to change, just that he’s now aware of this other dimension to it. He doesn’t know exactly what outcome his actions will lead to, and that uncertainty is paralyzing.

“I’m fine,” Kenma says. “I just. I forgot something. I’ll be back.”

He doesn’t run away, this time. But he does turn very abruptly on his heel and walk towards the door, wondering if Kuroo can hear the furious beat of his pounding heart.

“Kenma!” Kuroo calls out. 

Kenma turns just barely to face him.

“You are coming back, right?” Kuroo says, almost desperately. 

“Yeah,” Kenma says. “I promise.”

\--

For a moment, he thinks getting out of the house will make breathing easier, but he’s wrong. His heart is still beating too fast, his palms clammy as he takes rapid steps further and further away from Kuroo’s house. His head isn’t spinning, exactly, but his thoughts are far away from his body, the two disconnected. He feels the stabbing sensation of a limb waking up from sleep, except that it’s all over his body and driving him to distraction. 

Coward, he thinks at himself darkly. Because what more could he be waiting for? Before, his excuse had been that he didn’t know what Kuroo felt for him. And now, he’s come up with another. Will his mind just keep doing this? Every time he’s assured of one thing, will it find another to obsess over? Is he always going to be trapped in spirals like this, thinking too much and pulling away from actually doing anything?

When he looks up, he’s arrived at the field at the end of the street, where he and Kuroo used to play volleyball as children. The sun is bright overhead, highlighting the dried out patches of yellowed grass. 

Kenma stands on the sidewalk, not taking the extra step into the field. Instead he digs around in his pockets, pulling out his 3DS a moment later. 

Just calm down, he thinks to himself, flipping on the device and tapping through its menus. The Triforce lights up on the screen, and within a few practiced button-pushes, Kenma’s back in Hyrule, far away from his own problems. 

He takes shallow breaths, guiding Link through ancient ruins and focusing on the meter of his health and the amount of rupees he’s acquired, anything to take his mind off of the present moment. 

But it isn’t as easy to slip away from his thoughts as it usually is. His hands are shaking, and with them the image on the screen. He tries to play through that distraction, scowling down at the 3DS when the shaking doesn’t stop. 

“Calm down,” he says, under his breath. “Calm down, calm down, calm down—”

From inside another pocket, his phone chirps. The noise is so sudden that Kenma startles, losing his grip on his 3DS as he flinches. The device is in the air for a moment, but even as Kenma yelps and reaches for it, it plummets towards the ground, landing screen-down on the sidewalk with a devastating crack. 

For a moment, Kenma can only stare at the device, lying on the sidewalk. It should be a small, stupid thing. People drop things all of the time. But to Kenma, in that moment, it feels emblematic of all of his recent failings. There’s a sudden pressure behind his eyes, and he bends his legs at the knee, sinking slowly down to the ground as the oppressive weight of his emotions settles over him. 

He reaches out slowly and flips the 3DS over. The screen has cracked spectacularly, the image distorted for a moment before the screen goes blank. Kenma toggles the power button, but it’s no use. It’s ruined. He wasn’t careful enough, didn’t act quickly enough. And now it’s destroyed.

He lets out a heavy sigh and closes the screen gingerly, tucking the 3DS back into his pocket. It’s then that he remembers his phone, pulling it out with shaky hands and glancing down at the notifications on his screen. 

_Shouyou (11:13): Hi, Kenma! This is Hinata Shouyou, remember? How’s your team doing? When do prelims start, for you? Ours are next week! We’re definitely going to make it through, so make sure you play your best so we can meet at Nationals!_

As Kenma glances over the words, he hears Shouyou’s voice in his mind, narrating. And he almost smiles, as a result, before something ugly settles in the pit of his stomach.

He envies Shouyou, in a way. Kenma’s never made friends easily, and most of the people he considers his friends now he met through the volleyball team, after he’d come to Nekoma. He doesn’t know if he could go out into the world and just be friendly to people, without constantly wondering what they thought of him, whether he was doing it right. He doesn’t think he’s ever had that ability, not for as long as he can remember. 

But he likes Shouyou. And he wants Shouyou to think well of him. So he unlocks his phone and starts thinking of what to say in response. 

But he’s not quite as precise as he normally is, because instead of hitting the reply button, his thumb lands on _call_.

He glances around in a panic, the dial tone starting immediately. Before Kenma can hang up, he hears a distant and tinny voice.

“Hello? Kenma?”

\--

“Hello?” Shouyou’s voice asks again. “Kenma, are you there?”

Kenma inhales a breath and presses the phone to his ear. “I’m here.”

“Oh! I figured you wouldn’t like phone calls!” 

“I don’t,” Kenma replies, honestly. He doesn’t even try to explain himself.

Shouyou laughs over the line, voice as bright as the rest of him. “You’re pretty strange, Kenma. But you’re cool, too! What are you doing? Did you have practice today?”

“No,” Kenma says, and to his great relief his mind is content to follow the thread of the conversation, easing his earlier anxiety.

“Too bad!” Shouyou crows. “Well, actually, we don’t have practice today, either. But Kageyama and I are going to practice, by ourselves! The first time we did, it was before we were really partners, but now it’s a lot better.”

Kenma blinks. Karasuno’s setter always comes up quickly in Shouyou’s conversation. Kenma can’t really fathom it—Kageyama Tobio had seemed to him like a terribly intimidating presence. And despite seeing them working so well together on the court, he has a hard time imagining how Kageyama and Shouyou fit together otherwise. 

“Anyway, we’ll have a lot of new moves ready for the next time we face you guys! So make sure you’re working hard too, okay!” 

Kenma almost laughs. “Maybe you should just work on receives, instead.”

He can almost see the steam rising from Shouyou’s ears, the way he makes a disgruntling, whining noise. “Of course, I will! Hey, hey, Kenma, what’s the weather like in Tokyo?”

“Mm? Warm. It rained, a few days ago.” 

“It’s been raining here a lot,” Shouyou complains. “And all the grassy areas get muddy, and it’s a pain. But I’m not gonna lose.”

“To the rain?”

“Yeah!” Shouyou pauses, then laughs at himself. And he makes that seem so easy. Kenma supposed that what he admires about Shouyou is how utterly unselfconscious he is, direct without fear of being judged or belittled. It’s a kind of courage Kenma knows he’ll never have. 

“ _Oi_.” A voice cuts through from the other line, dark and foreboding. It’s thin, distorted by distance. “What are you doing? I’ve been waiting for you.” 

Shouyou huffs, then says to Kenma, “It’s Kageyama, could you hear him? He’s rude, don’t you think?”

Kenma makes a noncommittal noise. Because he’d heard something else in Kageyama’s voice, other than rudeness. _I’ve been waiting for you_. 

Kageyama doesn’t strike Kenma as the sort of person who can make friends very easily. Not in the same way as Kenma, perhaps, because Kenma can’t imagine that Kageyama is ever self-conscious. But Kenma still feels a stab of empathy for him.

“Tch.” Shouyou’s still talking, a little more rushed, now. “I guess I should go practice before he gets too impatient. But I like talking to you, Kenma! You use Line, right? Send me a message! Then it’ll be like we’re having one long conversation, even though we have to cut it off, right now.”

He says it so simply, like he really does want to keep talking to Kenma. Kenma’s nodding before he remembers that Shouyou can’t see him.

“Alright,” he says. “Go practice.”

“I will!” Shouyou’s laughing, again. “You better watch out! You and Inuoka and your rooster-head captain!”

“ _Hurry up_.” That’s Kageyama’s voice, again, more impatient than before. 

“I’m coming!” Shouyou screams back. “Bye, Kenma!” 

“Thanks, Shouyou.”

For a few minutes after the line goes dead, Kenma sits, staring at his phone. Kageyama and Shouyou don’t really seem to get along, and yet Shouyou’s going out of his way to practice with Kageyama. Surely Shouyou has other teammates he could practice with. So why would he stick around with Kageyama, if he didn’t have to?

The answer is obvious, once Kenma thinks about it. It must be because Shouyou _wants_ to.

And just like that, the world seems to make sense, again.

\--

The cracked 3DS is a heavy weight in his pocket as Kenma turns around and heads back down the street. But it only takes a few minutes to reach Kuroo’s house. How long as he been gone? It can’t have been more than an hour. He wonders what Kuroo’s been doing, in the meantime. 

Kenma takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. Miyuki’s car is missing from the driveway, and she’s probably long gone to work. So the house is quiet as Kenma pads up the stairs to Kuroo’s bedroom. 

Kuroo’s right where Kenma left him, sitting up in bed with the blankets tucked around his waist. His eyes are half-closed as he leans against a formidable pile of pillows, like he can’t decide whether he wants to go back to sleep or not. But as soon as he hears Kenma at the door, he jolts up, looking wide awake.

“You came back,” he says, voice carefully casual.

“I said I would,” Kenma responds simply. He steps into the room, coming right up beside Kuroo’s bed.

“Do you still want to talk about it?” Kuroo asks quietly, hands fidgeting with the ends of his blankets.

Kenma shakes his head, and tries not to feel too guilty when Kuroo’s face falls. But clearly Kenma isn’t able to talk about this, right now. He’s already tried. Which means there’s only one thing left for him to do.

He leans forward, reaching out to brush Kuroo’s hair back from his head. Kuroo’s eyes wide in surprise, but he doesn’t move away. Kenma moves in closer, ducking his head and hoping he’s judging the angle right. His eyes flutter closed, and he sucks in a sharp breath before he closes the distance between them. 

And then, for one brief, blissful moment, there’s nothing to consider but the roughness of Kuroo’s lips against his. Kenma presses forward, insistent, and Kuroo makes a soft noise against his mouth. But neither of them pulls away, even though their kiss is closed-lipped and innocent. 

It feels like his heart is going to give out, because it’s beating so fast. Or maybe he’s going to catch fire, because he can feel heat running over every inch of his skin. Something has to happen, something momentous, because the way he’s feeling right now is too good, too happy, to be contained by anything normal. 

But the moment can’t last forever. Kenma pulls back, lips pursed together as Kuroo stares at him.

“Kenma,” Kuroo says, before biting down on his lower lip. His cheeks are red and he shakes his head a bit, like he’s trying to think straight but can’t. Then his expression scrunches, and Kenma knows what he’s about to do right before it happens.

“Kuro,” Kenma says warningly, “Don’t.”

Kuroo has the decency to look somewhat apologetic before he leans forward, overcome with breathy, uncontrolled laughter. 

Kenma scowls, reaching out and pushing Kuroo over sideways, onto the bed. 

“Sorry,” Kuroo breathes out, between bursts of laughter. “I always laugh at the wrong moment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was very delayed, and i have no excuses. but i hope it's in some way worth the wait!
> 
> also: i know nintendo makes their systems almost impossible to crack. but there's a motif, here, so just go with it.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/newamsterdame) | [tumblr](http://newamsterdame.tumblr.com/)


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